We currently use Word97 with a read only normal.dot file on the network
setup as a workgroup template. It allows me to standardize our document with
the same page setup but also to bring customized toolbars to all my users.
When I try the same configuration with Word 2003 everytime ...

In teh old WORD 97, if you browsewd for a file to hyperlink eg on a network
drive, there was a checkbox to check/uncheck if you wanted the hyperlink to
be relative or absolute. This has gone in Word 2000 and all such hyperlinks
are inserted as relative.