this may help others:
Corrupted normal.dot. Rename it or delete it, and see if the problem is fixed. Location can be found in:
Tools - Options - File Locations - User templates. -- done
Close Word and do a system cleanup using Ccleaner to remove all temp files. -- done
Could be a misfiring add-in. Remove add-ins one at a time to see if the problem goes
away. -- no add-ins ??
Turn off the Word AutoRecovery feature by going to Tools, Options and then the Save tab and unchecking the box that says Save AutoRecover info every:. Then Next you can try to delete the Normal.dot file with Word closed. When you open Word again it will create a new Normal.dot file. You can do a search of your hard drive for the file but make sure you have the Show hidden files and folders option checked in your folder options. - done
Make sure the document is set to 2003 format by going to Tools, Options and then the Compatability tab.
There are problems with saving changes to settings and to Normal.dot that have been reported:
Word does not save changes or you receive an error message in an Office program after you install Adobe Acrobat 7.0
Take a look here for additional information, including information on editing the registry:
How to troubleshoot problems that occur when you start or use Word 2010, Word 2007, Word 2003, or Word 2002
Risky:
Corrupted registry entry, usually the Data key; rename or delete the Data key, which can be found here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\W ord
If nothing seems to work then you can try a repair installation of Word. Go to Add/Remove Programs and click on Word or Microsoft Office if you use the Office suite and then use the repair option to have Word repair any corrupt files. Or you can uninstall Word and then reinstall. I would suggest running Ccleaner after the uninstall before reinstalling.