I'm not sure where you are going with this project but it is generally considered poor form to disable/hide all the functionality that a user may have customised for their own purposes - such as the QAT and Normal.dotm template contents. I prefer my templates to augment the user experience rather than remove familiar capabilities - leading a horse to water rather than forcing them to drink. That being said...

Does startFromScratch hide the QAT too? I've never used that setting myself. If that appears to be the only way to hide the QAT then you could reinstate each of the various ribbon tabs with xml. Just include the idMso for each tab.

Another alternative might be to export the existing QAT as the template opens, then remove all buttons. A separate macro could then re-instate the exported QAT as you close the template. This might be quite complicated if there are multiple templates (Normal, attached or add-ins) which each carry QAT customisations.

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Andrew Lockton
Chrysalis Design, Melbourne Australia