Where are "compare/merge/panels" settings stored in various Office versions?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hank Roberts
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Hank Roberts

I haven't been wrassling Word since 2003, when John McGhie saved me repeatedly.

I'm back.

Question is, where are settings for compare and merge stored?
I thought they were in normal.dot/dotm -- want to be sure. Details below:

(Aside -- I'm not a programmer; I'm good at recognizing language that's mangled by software; I'm looking at test file output)

With each new version of his software, every day or so, I get a fresh normal.dot/dotm installed (overwriting what's there)

I'm doing this with a handful of combinations every day, any combination from Office 2003, 2007, or 2010, run under Windows XP, 7Pro, or 7_64-bit.

I start a routine that opens a Word doc, 'types' test text into it, then calls up a comparison: the document his tool created today against a golden document.
(Lots of little test files involved, lots of comparisons every day.)

The comparison I used to get was fine. I've lost it somehow.

The comparison always used to show the three panels: old, new, and combined with changes -- so I could see what his software did vs. what should have done.

Suddenly, I'm getting single document comparisons instead when his tool finishes running.

I can set those options myself, once, and they stick -- until the next time his next version arrives.

I think the setting is lost by overwriting normal.dot/dotm.

I think he can setting those toolbar options for compare and merge, at his development machine, when creating his new test version every day.

He's no more fan of Word than I am, he's doing complex stuff not setting toolbars and isn't real sure what changed about this.

Am I right that's the only place Word stores the compare and merge toolbar setting?

Can he make the setting get set to three-panel display before sending me his new version?

No clue how this got lost after working without any fiddling for a year or more, many hundreds of times.
 
One clue: the folks whose work I'm looking at have not replaced normal.dot/dotm for months; the change happened somewhere else. They do generate a companyname.dot/dotm and an uninstall-companyname.dot/dotm file with each new installation.

Another clue: another unsolved problem -- sporadic changes in the style ofsome part of the output from one day/version to the next that aren't intended, and show up as failures because those are the only difference between the new output and the 'golden' doc it's being compared to.

I'm here trying to formulate a smart enough question about this, as I've been away from Word for quite a few years.

I have found this since I first asked above:

"... two basic types of options that you can define in Word. These optionsare as follows:
• Options that affect the way that the program operates. (The information for this kind of option is generally stored in the Microsoft Windows registry.)
• Options that affect the formatting or the appearance of one or more documents. (The information for this kind of option is stored in templates or documents.)...."
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822005

Main locations of Word settings in the Windows Registry ....."

(Oh dear lord and little fishes, I didn't want to know that. It might be part of the smart question.)
 
Anyone?   Any clue?   A nudge?

Please?
Click to expand...

Could you say exactly what your question is, without (most of) the
backstory?

(I don't get this "fresh template every day or so" business in the
first place, but I haven't used Word2003 in years so I doubt I could
be of any use anyway.)
 
Could you say exactly what your question is, without (most of) the
backstory?
Click to expand...

Sure. Most settings are stored in normal.dot or normal.dotm.

Some settings are stored somewhere other than normal.dot and .dotm.

I'm looking for where Word stores its settings specifically for comparing two documents and displaying the results.

I'm looking for this answer for Word 2003, 2007, and 2010, under XP, Windows 7, and Windows 7 64-bit (9 possible combinations).
 
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