Microsoft Word: Only starts in Safe Mode

Problem Description
When starting Microsoft Word, a dialog box appears:

Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word has encountered a problem and needs to close.  We are sorry for the inconvenience.

The information you were working on might be lost.  Microsoft Word can try to recover it for you.

Recover my work and restart Microsoft Word

Please tell Microsoft about this problem.

We have created an error report that you can send to help us improve Microsoft Word.  We will treat this report as confidential and anonymous.

To see what data this error report contains, click here.

Send Error Report   Don't Send



Regardless of which button is clicked, the following dialog box appears:

Microsoft Word

Word failed to start correctly last time.  Starting Word in safe mode will help you correct or isolate a startup problem in order to successfully start the program.  Some functionality may be disabled in this mode.

Do you want to start Word in safe mode?

Yes   No


Solution
Rename or delete the normal.dot file. Normal.dot is stored in different places depending on which version of Microsoft Word and which version of Windows you have.