Word templates not opening as new documents

Charles is  not mandating that the Workgroup Templates folder not be shared.  By going to File>Options>Advanced>General>File Locations, you can modify the location of the Workgroup Templates folder(s) so that one of them points to your "Practice Docs" folder.  If you do that, the contents of that folder will be displayed in the "classic" New dialog.

If the "Practice Docs" folder is shared, it would be best to set it as the Workgroup Templates folder.

Hi Nicholas,

Thank you for posting back.

I understand the issue is that when you double click a .dotm template, it opens as the template itself with .dotm file format, it seems you cannot find Edit or Open option when right click the template.

I have tested in Current Channel of Word, version 2010(Build 13328.20356), I navigate to the template folder in File Explorer, when I double click a .dotm template, it opens as a new document which name is Document1 and file format is .docx. I can find Edit and Open option with right-click, but only using Edit option will open the template in a new document.

Your Office version is a bit different from mine, to confirm the details and ensure we are testing in same Office, could you please share a screenshot as below?

Besides, it seems you modified the default personal templates location so the templates are not in 

C:\Users[username]\Documents\Custom Office Templates

If it's convenient, just a test, you may try to copy one of the templates and paste to this location, check if same issue appears.

And you mentioned the issue starts after a Windows update. What's your current Windows version?

Best Regards,

Tina

Doug and Charles, please take a minute to read through my question.  Both of you suggested something that was clearly already done or noted.

There is a clear difference with the template icons, so something is up.

Hi and thanks for helping.  I have pre-existing templates .dotm.  I click the templates directly in Windows Explorer and they open as the template instead of a new document.  The normal right-click options for templates "open" are not there.

Office 365 (16.0.13328.20350) reports as up to date.

Not sure if this is what you wanted for templates.

Hi Nicholas,

Sorry for the inconvenience caused by this issue.

Regarding the issue, I would also like to confirm following information:

1.Is the issue that you create a new document from template via File>New>select a template, when you try to save the document, the default file format is .dotm?

2.What is the current version and channel of your Office? In Word, please click File>Account and then capture a full screenshot of Product Information.

3.Seems the issue happens to all Word templates, could you share some screenshots about "All templates are just opening as .dotm instead of .docm or .docx".

Thanks for your time and effort.

Best Regards,

Tina