Yesterday I had to transfer a user to a new computer and we normally use Files and Settings Transfer Wizard in to do that work. the move was smoothly done, but somehow Microsoft word 2003 was not working on the new machine. it was giving the annoying error “Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close” I did all the updates including SP3 but nothing seemed to fix the problem.

checking Microsoft web site for the problem, it told me it was the normal.dot template that was corrupted, but how could the normal.dot template could be corrupted when it never had been open before? then I realized the problem; Microsoft word was open when I ran the File and  Settings Transfer Wizard on the old computer, and because of that a temporary normal.dot got copied to the new computer.

Microsoft Word normal.dot file

that (picture above) temporary normal.dot file is created when word is open, and if you run the File and Settings Transfer wizard while it is open, it will get copied to the new computer, creating conflicts in the new computer with word.

the normal.not file can be found at your computer profile path at: C:\Documents and Settings\yourprofilename\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates if you are having the same issue I had, delete everything under the template folder. Microsoft word will recreate the files automatically when you open it up. remember that is not a good practice to have applications open when you run Files and Settings Transfer Wizard on computers to transfer data. oh well, I did, and I learned from that mistake.