Hi John,
Just in case you missed the distinction, I suggested starting *Word* in safe
mode, and Cindy suggested starting *Windows* in safe mode. Both are
legitimate troubleshooting methods, but they're initiated differently and
have different effects.
Word's safe mode is started, as I said, by holding Ctrl while launching
Word. The effect is to prevent Word from loading any add-ins or global
templates, and preventing any macros from running at startup. That will
eliminate any problems from those sources, but not anything truly external
to Word -- such as a program that intercepts disk writes and redirects
them. I think a source like that is unlikely, because it would probably
affect all programs and not just Word.
The Windows safe mode is entered by pressing F8 while Windows is starting up
after a reboot. It limits the kinds of device drivers and startup programs
that load. For a description of what it does, go to Start > Help and enter
'safe mode' in the index. You would probably want to choose 'Safe Mode with
Networking' so you can still see your server.
One other thing: In your reply to Suzanne you mentioned having Norton
AntiVirus. If that's the standard version and not the corporate version, it
may have a plug-in for Office. That plug-in is known to cause problems in
Word -- although not usually the kind you're seeing -- so it's worth
disabling it if it's there. See
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=329820
for instructions.