I wish Normal.dot would mind its own business

I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a minute-by-minute backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.) Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a "bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save As" page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word "Templates" and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off, another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user etc. and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me what is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to assassinate this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

FWIW, this is NOT normal behavior.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Don" wrote in message
...
I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a minute-by-minute
backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.) Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a "bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I
looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save As" page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word "Templates"
and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off,
another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user etc.
and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no
difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me what
is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to assassinate
this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Thanks for the smile, Suzanne, but I really need to find out how can I induce
my normal.dot to act normal again. She is driving me crazy.

Seriously, I looked around for some kind of answer, but couldn't see anyone
else with this problem.
--
Thanks, Don


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

FWIW, this is NOT normal behavior.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Don" wrote in message
...
I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a minute-by-minute
backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.) Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a "bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I
looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save As" page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word "Templates"
and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off,
another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user etc.
and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no
difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me what
is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to assassinate
this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Your AutoSave program runs once a minute, you hit the issue once a minute -
as the Americans say, you do the math! The problem is almost certainly in
the action of the AutoSave. Not knowing how it does its stuff, I can't
really comment further - does it have any options relating to Normal.dot (an
essential element of Word, which you cannot assassinate).

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the smile, Suzanne, but I really need to find out how can I
induce
my normal.dot to act normal again. She is driving me crazy.

Seriously, I looked around for some kind of answer, but couldn't see
anyone
else with this problem.
--
Thanks, Don


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

FWIW, this is NOT normal behavior.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Don" wrote in message
...
I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup
software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a minute-by-minute
backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.) Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a
"bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I
looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save As"
page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can
take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word
"Templates"
and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off,
another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user
etc.
and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no
difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me
what
is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to assassinate
this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Thanks for replying Tony.

Yes, I do realize that the problem is "in synch" with my auto save. Even
so, I don't believe the problem is with the auto save software, as such. For
one thing, the auto recover software was working perfectly well with my word
2002--no problem at all--for a long time. Secondly, it's a very simple piece
of software and there's nothing to adjust in it. It just saves one copy a
minute to a folder on my external drive. It could and probably is involved
tangentially, but I think the problem has more to do with my normal.dot
template. However, I've never changed anything in the normal.dot (not that
I'm aware of, anyway), so I can't figure out why it's acting up, nor how to
fix it.

I've been looking around on the Net, but I don't really understand how it
works.
Surely someone here can tell me how to set it right.

A late report... I just opened my Word 2002 and on the left in a vertical
section entitled "Available Files" it says "Template 1 Recovered. It asks me
which file do I want to save. And yes, the word "auto recover" is there.
Whoops, I did something and it's all gone. ....

Well, I'm glad I kept my old typewriter.
--


"Tony Jollans" wrote:

Your AutoSave program runs once a minute, you hit the issue once a minute -
as the Americans say, you do the math! The problem is almost certainly in
the action of the AutoSave. Not knowing how it does its stuff, I can't
really comment further - does it have any options relating to Normal.dot (an
essential element of Word, which you cannot assassinate).

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the smile, Suzanne, but I really need to find out how can I
induce
my normal.dot to act normal again. She is driving me crazy.

Seriously, I looked around for some kind of answer, but couldn't see
anyone
else with this problem.
--
Thanks, Don


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

FWIW, this is NOT normal behavior.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Don" wrote in message
...
I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup
software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a minute-by-minute
backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.) Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a
"bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I
looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save As"
page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can
take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word
"Templates"
and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off,
another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user
etc.
and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no
difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me
what
is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to assassinate
this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

So you've had some sort of crash and Word has tried to recover - amongst
other things, your Normal template. It sounds like this has confused
AutoSave.

Word is playing safe and not allowing Normal.dot to be overwritten without
your say-so. Perhaps whatever you did has been taken to be that say-so - are
you saying all is now well?

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks for replying Tony.

Yes, I do realize that the problem is "in synch" with my auto save. Even
so, I don't believe the problem is with the auto save software, as such.
For
one thing, the auto recover software was working perfectly well with my
word
2002--no problem at all--for a long time. Secondly, it's a very simple
piece
of software and there's nothing to adjust in it. It just saves one copy a
minute to a folder on my external drive. It could and probably is
involved
tangentially, but I think the problem has more to do with my normal.dot
template. However, I've never changed anything in the normal.dot (not
that
I'm aware of, anyway), so I can't figure out why it's acting up, nor how
to
fix it.

I've been looking around on the Net, but I don't really understand how it
works.
Surely someone here can tell me how to set it right.

A late report... I just opened my Word 2002 and on the left in a vertical
section entitled "Available Files" it says "Template 1 Recovered. It asks
me
which file do I want to save. And yes, the word "auto recover" is there.
Whoops, I did something and it's all gone. ....

Well, I'm glad I kept my old typewriter.
--


"Tony Jollans" wrote:

Your AutoSave program runs once a minute, you hit the issue once a
minute -
as the Americans say, you do the math! The problem is almost certainly in
the action of the AutoSave. Not knowing how it does its stuff, I can't
really comment further - does it have any options relating to Normal.dot
(an
essential element of Word, which you cannot assassinate).

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the smile, Suzanne, but I really need to find out how can I
induce
my normal.dot to act normal again. She is driving me crazy.

Seriously, I looked around for some kind of answer, but couldn't see
anyone
else with this problem.
--
Thanks, Don


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

FWIW, this is NOT normal behavior.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Don" wrote in message
...
I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup
software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a
minute-by-minute
backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.)
Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a
"bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I
looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save
As"
page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can
take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this
extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word
"Templates"
and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off,
another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user
etc.
and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no
difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me
what
is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to
assassinate
this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Thanks Tony. I think you're getting to the bottom of it. You're right. I
was having some trouble for a while a few days ago and my word (and my
explorer) crashed several times. I had some help to get back to normal and
haven't had any further crashes, but I guess this normal.dot problem is a
residual problem from whatever happened to me a few days ago. Otherwise
everything would be okay--I think.

I just downloaded and reinstalled the Auto Save, but the problem persisted.
The question is, what to do now. Do you have a suggestion?
--
Tony Jollans" wrote:

So you've had some sort of crash and Word has tried to recover - amongst
other things, your Normal template. It sounds like this has confused
AutoSave.

Word is playing safe and not allowing Normal.dot to be overwritten without
your say-so. Perhaps whatever you did has been taken to be that say-so - are
you saying all is now well?

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks for replying Tony.

Yes, I do realize that the problem is "in synch" with my auto save. Even
so, I don't believe the problem is with the auto save software, as such.
For
one thing, the auto recover software was working perfectly well with my
word
2002--no problem at all--for a long time. Secondly, it's a very simple
piece
of software and there's nothing to adjust in it. It just saves one copy a
minute to a folder on my external drive. It could and probably is
involved
tangentially, but I think the problem has more to do with my normal.dot
template. However, I've never changed anything in the normal.dot (not
that
I'm aware of, anyway), so I can't figure out why it's acting up, nor how
to
fix it.

I've been looking around on the Net, but I don't really understand how it
works.
Surely someone here can tell me how to set it right.

A late report... I just opened my Word 2002 and on the left in a vertical
section entitled "Available Files" it says "Template 1 Recovered. It asks
me
which file do I want to save. And yes, the word "auto recover" is there.
Whoops, I did something and it's all gone. ....

Well, I'm glad I kept my old typewriter.
--


"Tony Jollans" wrote:

Your AutoSave program runs once a minute, you hit the issue once a
minute -
as the Americans say, you do the math! The problem is almost certainly in
the action of the AutoSave. Not knowing how it does its stuff, I can't
really comment further - does it have any options relating to Normal.dot
(an
essential element of Word, which you cannot assassinate).

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the smile, Suzanne, but I really need to find out how can I
induce
my normal.dot to act normal again. She is driving me crazy.

Seriously, I looked around for some kind of answer, but couldn't see
anyone
else with this problem.
--
Thanks, Don


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

FWIW, this is NOT normal behavior.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Don" wrote in message
...
I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup
software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a
minute-by-minute
backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.)
Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a
"bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I
looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save
As"
page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can
take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this
extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word
"Templates"
and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off,
another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user
etc.
and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no
difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me
what
is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to
assassinate
this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Hi Don,

At the least, you need to clean up the crash debris. See
http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm. That may not stop the
problem, but it certainly can't hurt.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.

On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 18:28:00 -0700, Don wrote:

Thanks Tony. I think you're getting to the bottom of it. You're right. I
was having some trouble for a while a few days ago and my word (and my
explorer) crashed several times. I had some help to get back to normal and
haven't had any further crashes, but I guess this normal.dot problem is a
residual problem from whatever happened to me a few days ago. Otherwise
everything would be okay--I think.

I just downloaded and reinstalled the Auto Save, but the problem persisted.
The question is, what to do now. Do you have a suggestion?
--
Tony Jollans" wrote:

So you've had some sort of crash and Word has tried to recover - amongst
other things, your Normal template. It sounds like this has confused
AutoSave.

Word is playing safe and not allowing Normal.dot to be overwritten without
your say-so. Perhaps whatever you did has been taken to be that say-so - are
you saying all is now well?

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks for replying Tony.

Yes, I do realize that the problem is "in synch" with my auto save. Even
so, I don't believe the problem is with the auto save software, as such.
For
one thing, the auto recover software was working perfectly well with my
word
2002--no problem at all--for a long time. Secondly, it's a very simple
piece
of software and there's nothing to adjust in it. It just saves one copy a
minute to a folder on my external drive. It could and probably is
involved
tangentially, but I think the problem has more to do with my normal.dot
template. However, I've never changed anything in the normal.dot (not
that
I'm aware of, anyway), so I can't figure out why it's acting up, nor how
to
fix it.

I've been looking around on the Net, but I don't really understand how it
works.
Surely someone here can tell me how to set it right.

A late report... I just opened my Word 2002 and on the left in a vertical
section entitled "Available Files" it says "Template 1 Recovered. It asks
me
which file do I want to save. And yes, the word "auto recover" is there.
Whoops, I did something and it's all gone. ....

Well, I'm glad I kept my old typewriter.
--


"Tony Jollans" wrote:

Your AutoSave program runs once a minute, you hit the issue once a
minute -
as the Americans say, you do the math! The problem is almost certainly in
the action of the AutoSave. Not knowing how it does its stuff, I can't
really comment further - does it have any options relating to Normal.dot
(an
essential element of Word, which you cannot assassinate).

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the smile, Suzanne, but I really need to find out how can I
induce
my normal.dot to act normal again. She is driving me crazy.

Seriously, I looked around for some kind of answer, but couldn't see
anyone
else with this problem.
--
Thanks, Don


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

FWIW, this is NOT normal behavior.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Don" wrote in message
...
I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup
software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a
minute-by-minute
backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.)
Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a
"bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I
looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save
As"
page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can
take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this
extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word
"Templates"
and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off,
another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user
etc.
and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no
difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me
what
is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to
assassinate
this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

Thanks for the information, Jay. I'll run through the procedure and clean up
the debris and report the result.

Cheers, Don.
--


"Jay Freedman" wrote:

Hi Don,

At the least, you need to clean up the crash debris. See
http://www.gmayor.com/what_to_do_when_word_crashes.htm. That may not stop the
problem, but it certainly can't hurt.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ: http://word.mvps.org
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so all
may benefit.

On Sat, 2 Aug 2008 18:28:00 -0700, Don wrote:

Thanks Tony. I think you're getting to the bottom of it. You're right. I
was having some trouble for a while a few days ago and my word (and my
explorer) crashed several times. I had some help to get back to normal and
haven't had any further crashes, but I guess this normal.dot problem is a
residual problem from whatever happened to me a few days ago. Otherwise
everything would be okay--I think.

I just downloaded and reinstalled the Auto Save, but the problem persisted.
The question is, what to do now. Do you have a suggestion?
--
Tony Jollans" wrote:

So you've had some sort of crash and Word has tried to recover - amongst
other things, your Normal template. It sounds like this has confused
AutoSave.

Word is playing safe and not allowing Normal.dot to be overwritten without
your say-so. Perhaps whatever you did has been taken to be that say-so - are
you saying all is now well?

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks for replying Tony.

Yes, I do realize that the problem is "in synch" with my auto save. Even
so, I don't believe the problem is with the auto save software, as such.
For
one thing, the auto recover software was working perfectly well with my
word
2002--no problem at all--for a long time. Secondly, it's a very simple
piece
of software and there's nothing to adjust in it. It just saves one copy a
minute to a folder on my external drive. It could and probably is
involved
tangentially, but I think the problem has more to do with my normal.dot
template. However, I've never changed anything in the normal.dot (not
that
I'm aware of, anyway), so I can't figure out why it's acting up, nor how
to
fix it.

I've been looking around on the Net, but I don't really understand how it
works.
Surely someone here can tell me how to set it right.

A late report... I just opened my Word 2002 and on the left in a vertical
section entitled "Available Files" it says "Template 1 Recovered. It asks
me
which file do I want to save. And yes, the word "auto recover" is there.
Whoops, I did something and it's all gone. ....

Well, I'm glad I kept my old typewriter.
--


"Tony Jollans" wrote:

Your AutoSave program runs once a minute, you hit the issue once a
minute -
as the Americans say, you do the math! The problem is almost certainly in
the action of the AutoSave. Not knowing how it does its stuff, I can't
really comment further - does it have any options relating to Normal.dot
(an
essential element of Word, which you cannot assassinate).

--
Enjoy,
Tony

"Don" wrote in message
...
Thanks for the smile, Suzanne, but I really need to find out how can I
induce
my normal.dot to act normal again. She is driving me crazy.

Seriously, I looked around for some kind of answer, but couldn't see
anyone
else with this problem.
--
Thanks, Don


"Suzanne S. Barnhill" wrote:

FWIW, this is NOT normal behavior.

--
Suzanne S. Barnhill
Microsoft MVP (Word)
Words into Type
Fairhope, Alabama USA

"Don" wrote in message
...
I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup
software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a
minute-by-minute
backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.)
Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a
"bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I
looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save
As"
page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can
take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this
extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word
"Templates"
and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off,
another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user
etc.
and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no
difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me
what
is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to
assassinate
this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.

I went careful fhrough all the procedures contained in the link and I deleted
all the temp files as instructed, but my problem persists. Perhaps it would
help if I write down exactly what happens. Each time my Auto Save software
functions (once a minute) I get a “bong� and an extra window is created on my
desktop. This window will give rise to two others, so I have three windows
to close for each minute of work with the backup on, as follows:

1. A small window that says:

This file is in use by another application or user
(C:Users\My Name\...\Normal.dot)

I click okay and it’s followed by

2. a “Save As� page, the pertinent details of which a

Save in: Templates

Name: Normal.dot

Save as type: Document Template (*.dot)

3. I close that item without saving it and I get a dark page. When I close
that the dark page, I get: a Microsoft Word “Notice� that reads.

“Changes have been made that affect the global template, Normal.dot. Do you
wish to save these changes. I click on “no� and that one disappears.

*These items accumulate at the rate of one a minute when I have my Auto Save
on. Please don’t suggest I simply keep the Auto Save off. I need it and it
worked perfectly well before the word crash. The problem pretty well has to
be related to an unwanted change in my word program. (I’ve reinstalled my
word 2002 several times and the problem persists.)

Perhaps this will ring a bell with someone. I continue to welcome any
suggestions.


--



"Don" wrote:

I use Word 2002 (from Works 6) on a newer computer with Vista.

I'm a writer and I use an excellent minute-by-minute Word backup software
(to an external drive) called "Auto Save". (I need a minute-by-minute backup
because I'm very old and there's a lot of dust in my brain.) Anyway,
everything worked fine until the other day when I started hearing a "bong"
once every minute (each time my beloved Auto Save did its thing). I looked
around and found that, along with each "bong", an unrelated "Save As" page
had been generated itself at the rate of one every minute. (It can take
hours to close them all at the end of a work session.) On this extra
(useless) page, up there in "Save in" rectangle, is the word "Templates" and,
in the big pane, it says normal.dot. When you close this thing off, another
box appears saying "This file is in use by another application/user etc. and
gives the file path.

I've uninstalled word and reinstalled it twice, but it makes no difference.

There's more, but by now someone out there should be able to tell me what is
going on, and what possible steps I might take in order to assassinate this
normal.dot thug and get back to a normal life.

Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide.