14 DAY TRIAL // The latest Windows 10 cumulative update is resetting the configuration of a number of Office 2016 installs and is breaking down macros and templates.
Posts on Microsoft’s Community forums reveal that, after installing cumulative update KB3124200, macros, autocorrect settings, and templates are no longer available, and Word 2016 only loads the default settings.
“I use Word 2016, running on Windows 10. I use vast numbers of Macros, autocorrects and autotext, all saved in the Normal template. The template has just been wiped without my intervention and reset to a factory default, losing all my settings, macros etc. This has happened before (I saved a spare ‘Normal’ after that, which seems to have vanished.),” one of the impacted users explains.
The update renames the configuration file
In a response posted in the same thread, Microsoft engineer Rob_L confirms that the cumulative update renames the configuration file called Normal.dotm to Nortmal.dotm.old, so Word loads the default settings after that.
“This means that all of the content in that original Normal.dotm (macros, autotext entries, styles, etc.) will no longer be loaded by Word, and when Word shuts down, a new ‘clean’ Normal.dotm will be created,” the engineer further details.
Microsoft has also published a knowledge base article to explain how to repair the problem and restore the renamed file, at least until a fix is provided.
Other users recommend Office 2016 customers to save their templates, styles, macros, and other settings separately in a different template to prevent such bugs from impacting their configuration files.
Some claim that this isn’t the first time it’s happening and suggest that disabling automatic Windows updates is the only way to avoid experiencing the same issue over and over again. And yet, saving settings in a separate template and still getting cumulative updates is just the better option this time because this way computers would always be patched.