on various computers, when i close an application( not only word, also excel and outlook) my system asks me if i want to save normal.dot because it has been changed. this seems to me like an virus like activity because i did not change anything in these documents. anyone know what the problem is.

It is possible that it could be a virus activity, but I don;t think so... The normal.dot file is NOT a Word document per see...it is a file that is available to ALL Word documents that sets up default things like, the font, line spaceing, font size, left and right margine...and other things... If you open a document and change some of those items, they can change the settings in the normal.dot file...so, when you close a document or close Word, it will ask you if you want these new settings to be the default settings...or do these settings apply to ALL Word documents... Hope this helps Steve