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Recently we've had an issue come up where as soon as a user with a configured email profile logs onto Windows an error pops up before explorer.exe or the start bar loads stating:

"Normal was being edited by another Word session. If you save this document with the original name, you will overwrite any changes made in the other session."

This error actually plays a notification sound before the Welcome screen disappears. The error window then prompts you to save the normal template under a different name. Also immediately after this pops up and the start bar appears Outlook reminders pop up. Neither Word nor Outlook are in the startup for Windows. I've also gone into msconfig and disabled all startup items and this still occurs. This does not occur if starting in safe mode. There are no scheduled tasks in the Task scheduler and no Office related services starting with Windows.

I used Process Explorer to look at the normal template file and it states it's in use by the System Idle Process, which is odd. The details on the systems we're seeing this on are below:

-Dell Latitude E6440; i5 8GB RAM

-Windows 7 Professional x64

-Office 2013 Home and Business

-AVG 2015 Business (tested enabled and disabled)

-Symantec DLO backup agent

-All important and optional updates installed

-All PCs are on a domain, users are local admins

Any thoughts or insight into this are greatly appreciated. Also, saving the normal template under a different name does not resolve this issue as it comes back after a period of time. Clicking Cancel closes the prompt but at times the error will come back up while using Office.

UPDATE: We now have 3 machines exhibiting this behavior. All with fresh installs of Office 2013. This occurs before AVG and Symantec are installed.

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  • Use this tool to check startup programs: technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx
    – maudam
    Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 17:31
  • I ran that and did not see anything related to Office except the 'click to run' service, which is required by Office to operate. I tested setting that service to Manual but it still starts at startup. Other than that it was system drivers and other applications
    – Mike Naylor
    Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 18:37
  • disabling the Click 2 Run service generates a different error that "Something went wrong" with Office on startup. The other error does not appear as Office does not launch at all.
    – Mike Naylor
    Commented Dec 29, 2014 at 18:45
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    Do you have domain policy active on your network ? Maybe a startup script for user profile or machine profile start something about office.
    – maudam
    Commented Dec 30, 2014 at 16:09
  • No. Even moved those machines to another OU.
    – Mike Naylor
    Commented Dec 30, 2014 at 16:33

1 Answer 1

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Q: Did the machines have a cripple-ware version of Outlook or Office installed, before you made the fresh install of Office 2013? Could there be some latent garbage in the registry from the cripple-ware versions?

If so, try cleaning the cripple-ware out, before installing Office 2013.

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  • To clarify 'cripple-ware', do you mean the partially pre-installed Office that comes on every Dell machine?
    – Mike Naylor
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 16:31
  • Yes, the "partial" Office. It could be causing problems. By analogy, the "Outlook Lite" installations used to cause similar headaches with Outlook.
    – sam pittman
    Commented Jan 28, 2015 at 17:07

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