Windows Microsoft Office Problem (Tied to Norton Anti-Virus)

For ALL of my microsoft office programs
(excel, word, powerpoint)
I can't OPEN files.
When I try it says
"The file <file name> is not available"

Other errors are..

When I close, it says:
"The file Normal already exists. Do you want to replace with the existing file?"
If I say no, as I have been, it takes me to save the "Normal" file under
C:/Documents and Settings/<user account>/Application Data/Microsoft/Templates


If I click cancel, then exist again I recieve this message:
"Changes have been made that effect the global template, Normal. Do you want to save those changes?"

If I say no, it exits the program.

oh, and as far as I got finding help (with the exiting not the opening thing) led me to Norton changes, and I can no longer USE norton since it screws up, and when I do the fix thing they say, it does nothing.

I don't have the error code for the norton thing that can be used on the symnatec site since after I reinstalled Norton it just won't open.

Oh, and I reinstalled office to. It didn't do a thing.

Since I can't open Word files, its kind've bad for my homework.
Any ideas?

The only thing I can think of is a virus.. which actually makes knowing worse.
I haven't noticed any slowdowns however nor any spyware (Well, I haven't gone on IE in a while, just FF)

 

Please see if this is related.

 

Thanks for helping, but thats what I found before.

Nothing in this folder.

This did.. nothing.

I can't open Norton anti-virus.

Kinda useless if I can't open norton..


Thanks for the help tho.

 

If you didn't try it yet, start from renaming all instances of Normal.dot file (see this for more details).

 

Also, just to make sure ... please scan your computer using these online virus scans.

Hope to hear from you soon...

 

BTW, you could temporarily substitute MS Office with the free OpenOffice.

 

Uninstall Office.
Uninstall Norton.
Remove office folder
Reinstall up to date virus scanner.
Reinstall office and apply latest updates.