Error: The last time you opened BasicSimple.dotx, it caused a serious error

Anonymous
2023-01-28T14:48:37+00:00

When I am typing in Word, I will hover the mouse over the toolbar and spin the wheel and as it goes back to the right toolbar (Home for example from view) I get this error: Error: "The last time you opened BasicSimple.dotx, it caused a serious error. Do you still want to open it?"

I do not understand why it keep popping up only when i spin the scroll wheel when i am trying to switch between toolbar menus. Any advice?

Moderator's note: BasicSimple.dotx is a built-in [Quick] Style Set.

[Quick] Style Sets and Word Themes in Microsoft Word

[Quick] Style Sets

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

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Anonymous
2023-07-24T15:55:25+00:00

Can you please give me a step by step description of what you did. I am the one who created this thread and so far nothing I have tried or seen here has worked. I still get the same error.

Hi sidscrat,

Your Normal.dotm file should be at this locaition: C:\UserName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates.

Rename Normal.dotm to Normal.dotm_old or something similar. After that, restart the computer.

That process seemed to fix the issue for some of us.

James

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  1. Anonymous
    2023-04-13T03:29:58+00:00

    I am no longer seeing this behaviour. Haven't changed a thing since I posted and tried to fix the problem myself based on this thread and other suggested fixes I found at the time. If an update has been installed to fix the issue, I'll never know.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-04-11T20:23:31+00:00

    Hello,

    It's now April 2023, and I am having the exact same problem identified above. It occurs any time I want to select the design tab to customize something for any document at any location, local or SharePoint. I have done all the previous steps, and still am getting the errors pop up.

    Any new ideas, please?

    Amy

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-03-02T05:47:43+00:00

    Sidscrat this has been happening to me since about the end of January as well. I happens on many different documents and took me a long time to figure out it has to do with hovering over the ribbons and scrolling with the mouse. Seems to occur when working fast????

    I have had my office re-installed twice.

    I assume you also get the subsequent error messages when you toggle through Do you still want to open it like I do?

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-02-28T16:21:52+00:00

    The problem seems to have gone away for us as well. The only thing we changed since my last post was that we renamed the user's Normal.dotx file, restarted the computer and let Word recreate it. It stopped after that. Maybe that was the fix and maybe an update snuck in on us?

    who knows! :/

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