The message "Changes have been made that affect the global template -
normal. Do you wish to save those changes?" is an important warning. It
means that changes have been made, whether you intended to make changes or
not. You can also get it when your template has been altered by a poorly
written Add-In program or by a malicious virus. You should get this when you
make changes or any other program makes changes.
Getting this every time you close Word is annoying. While it is possible
to turn this prompt off, you do not want to do so. Turning this off is like
taking the batteries out of your smoke detector because it keeps buzzing!
The reason for the message being shown repeatedly is almost always a
poorly written Add-In.
Even if you think that you haven't installed any Add-Ins, other
programs will often do so without any notification to help you use their
programs with Word. Offenders have included the Norton AV Office Plug-In, MS Works Suite Add-In, EZ-Photo, Scansoft, Adobe
Acrobat, and Microsoft's own Word Redaction Add-In and MetaData remover. In
the past, these all installed Add-Ins that
mess with your normal.dot when they shouldn't do so and don't need to do so.
Some of these are .dot files, others are installed. The list above is
historical and does not mean that those Add-ins are currently causing
problems. See
How to find out whether any Word Add-ins have been installed for
instructions on seeing what Add-Ins you have.
(Having Add-Ins is not a bad
thing. I run Word with more than 20 Add-Ins, most of which I wrote myself.)
Look at your installed Add-ins and think about whether
they are worth the annoyance they are causing you. Perhaps they are not.
Disable any that are not worth the candle. I would actually start by
disabling all of them. Restart Word and see if your
problem is gone. If it is, then one-by-one, add the ones you want back into
your system, checking after you have done so to see if it triggers the
warning. This will require restarting Word a number of times.
If not...
If you start Word using
Start => Run: Winword.exe /a
you'll end up with Word out of the box loading without your saved normal.dot
file, with no macros and no Add-Ins. You may notice that it loads much more
quickly than you are used to seeing. When you close it, you won't get the "normal.dot"
prompt.
So, what you need to do is disable all of your Add-Ins (don't delete
them).
For template Add-Ins in your Word or Office
Startup Folders you may
want to create a sub-folder name "Stop" or "Pause" and, with Word
closed, move everything from the Startup Folder into that subfolder.
They will no longer be active. If doing that stops the message, then
one of them is the problem. With Word closed, move them back into
the Startup Folder, one by one until the message reappears.
If none of them are the problem, restore them all to your Startup
Folder and move on to dealing with the .com
Add-Ins that have to be disabled. That is done within Word. Same process:
Check if problem gone with all disabled. If not, restore the ones you
want. If it is, restore, one-by-one, until you again get the message,
restarting Word each time. When you get the message, you've found the
problem.
In recent versions of Word with the Add-Ins button, yet another
category of Add-ins exist, which can be controlled using that button.
Write to the company that put out the Add-In with a complaint, and possibly
a bill for your time.
All of the above applies.
If you want Word to prompt you to save the changes to the Normal.dotm
template, (advised) follow these steps:
Click the Microsoft File Tab (2007 Office Button), and then click Word
Options. In the Advanced tab, click to select the Prompt before saving
Normal template check box in the Save group. You do want this checked!
COM Add-Ins are handled under File > Options > Add-Ins > Go (button
to manage COM Add-Ins).
Microsoft Store Add-Ins are handled using the separate Add-Ins
button.
Note: You do want to have Word prompt
you about these changes.
This page last modified on
10 Mar 2025.
This page viewed
times since 15 April 2004.
