Folks:

Intel iMac, MacOS 10.4.8
Office 2004 fully updated

Word launches normally, and opens an empty document.  I immediately choose
"Save As"... and Word tries to open a connection to another computer on the
local network:  I see an alert "AFP Connection Status ... Looking up "<host
name>".  There's a "cancel" button -- more about this in a moment.

Since the target machine is powered down, the connection cannot be made.
MacOS eventually gives up and puts up an alert box that says:

"Connection failed .. The server may not exist or it is not operational at
this time. Check the server name or IP address and try again."

Answering "OK" should put an end to the matter, but Word apparently tries
again and this cycle repeats for as long as I've let it go.   When I get
tired of watching it, I try to hit the "cancel" button in the alert box, and
Word becomes locked, with a spinning pizza as long as I'm willing to wait,
many minutes.  The only way out is a Force Quit.

If I don't try to save but look around in various menus first, I discover
that just trying to open the "Save" Preferences causes this cycle to begin
-- the contents never become visible.  Work-around: if I powerup the target
server, the Save preferences become visible, but there is no reference in it
to any remote machine.   Nor does the File Locations Preferences mention
anything other than the local server. All but one location is blank and the
exception is set to the current machine.

The only place I see a mention of the other machine is in the recently used
files list under the File menu.  I can't see how to clear that ... even
though it shouldn't have any effect unless I choose a file on that list,
which I am not.  

Oh, yes, I threw away "Normal"... No help.   I tossed all MS preferences.
Didn't help.

Question 1:  What is Word looking for and why?

Question 2:  How do I tell Word to look on the local machine or, at least,
not to look on that particular remote machine?

Thanks,

Henry

henryn@zzzspacebbs.com  remove 'zzz'