During a fileserver migration I encountered a problem – users started to report that it takes unusually long to open Microsoft Word Documents. I did some investigations on this and found out that Word is saving the FQDN of the template path (*.dot) file. You can see this if you open a document in the Word splash screen.

You can manually change the template path within the document options in word – but what if you have thousands of files and you even don’t know which one are affected?

Here’s the answer: I just wrote a little script that will modify all documents within the given path.

You just need to modify the lines 45, 46, 47 to fit your environment

' #####################################################################
' ##
' ## (C) 2012 Michael Miklis (michaelmiklis.de)
' ##
' ## 
' ## Filename:      ChangeWordDocumentTemplate.vbs
' ##
' ## Version:	    1.0
' ##
' ## Release:	    Final 
' ##
' ## Requirements:  -none-
' ## 
' ## Description:   Changes the template in doc files
' ##
' ## This script is provided 'AS-IS'.  The author does not provide 
' ## any guarantee or warranty, stated or implied.  Use at your own 
' ## risk. You are free to reproduce, copy & modify the code, but 
' ## please give the author credit. 
' ##
' ####################################################################
Option Explicit

Dim strFilePath
Dim strPath
Dim intCounter
Dim strFileName
Dim OldServer
Dim NewServer
Dim objDoc
Dim objTemplate
Dim dlgTemplate
Dim objWord
Dim strFileArr
Dim objFs
Dim i

Const wdDialogToolsTemplates = 87

Set objFS = CreateObject("Scripting.Filesystemobject")

Set objWord = CreateObject("Word.Application")
objWord.Visible = false

strFilePath = "C:\Testfiles"
OldServer = "\\server_old\share\folder1\folder1.1" 
NewServer = "\\server_new\share\folder1\folder1.1"


If Right(strFilePath, 1) = "\" Then strFilePath = Left(strFilePath, Len(strFilePath) - 1)

strFileArr = Split(CreateFileList(objFS.GetFolder(strFilePath),true), vbCr)

For i=0 to UBound(strFileArr)
	If NOT strFileArr(i) = "" then
		strFileName = strFileArr(i)

		wscript.echo "--------------------------------------------------"
		wscript.echo "Processing File: " & strFilename

		Set objDoc = objWord.Documents.Open(strFileName)    
		Set objTemplate = objDoc.AttachedTemplate    
		Set dlgTemplate = objWord.Dialogs(wdDialogToolsTemplates)    
		strPath = dlgTemplate.Template

		wscript.echo "Old Template Name: " & strPath

		'// Only process templates based on old server
		If LCase(Left(strPath, Len(OldServer))) = LCase(OldServer) Then
			wscript.echo "Template needs to be changed..."    
			objDoc.AttachedTemplate = NewServer & Mid(strPath, Len(OldServer) + 1)
			wscript.echo "New Template Name: " & NewServer & Mid(strPath, Len(OldServer) + 1)
		End If    

		objDoc.Save                  
		objDoc.Close

		wscript.echo "--------------------------------------------------"
		wscript.echo ""
	End If
Next 

Set objDoc = Nothing
Set objTemplate = Nothing
Set dlgTemplate = Nothing  

'// Close Word
objWord.Quit (False)

'______________________FUNCTIONS & SUB ROUTINES_______________________

Function CreateFileList(objFolder, bRecursive)
	'// <summary> 
	'// 	Creates a List containing all Files
	'// </summary> 
	'// <param name="objFolder">Root-Folder for searching</param> 	
	'// <param name="bRecursive">Search recursive</param>
	Dim objFile, objSubFolder


        For each objFile in objFolder.Files
		If Right(lcase(objFile),4) = ".doc" OR Right(lcase(objFile),5) = ".docx" AND NOT Left(objFile.Name,1) = "~" then
	        	CreateFileList = CreateFileList & objFile.Path & vbCr
		End If
	Next

	If bRecursive = true then
		For each objSubFolder in objFolder.Subfolders
			CreateFileList = CreateFileList & CreateFileList(objSubFolder, true)
	        Next
	End If
End Function