I Googled and found this: (Please understand that I am just doing a copy and
paste from someone else's suggestion for the same problem.)
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You may perform the following troubleshooting steps:
Step1: Launch Word in Safe Mode
1. Click Start-->Run
2. Type "WINWORD /a" and click OK
Step2: Rename or Delete the Globe template Normal.dot file
1. Exit all the Office Program, click Start-->Search
2. Click All files and folders
3. Click More advanced options and make the check box "Search hidden
files and folders" be checked
4. In the text box "All or part of the file name", type "Normal.dot"
5. Press the button Search
6. After the search stop, delete the Normal.dot
Note: By default, Normal.dot file is located under the folder
"%userprofile%\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates"
Step3: Perform Clean-Boot troubleshooting. To do this, please refer to the
following KB article:
281770 How to Perform Clean-Boot Troubleshooting for Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=281770
(This is JoAnn again - If you aren't using Win 2000, search the KBs to see
if they have one that applies to clean booting your OS.)