I don't use addins and have not installed any of them.

My laptop was purchased new in September w. Windows 7Pro and I also bought a new and certified copy of Word 2013 (plus Excel) and installed Office fresh.

I've not downloaded or created or otherwise added anything at all to Word. I'm using it straight out of the box.

And yes I run AV and malware scans all the time and my PC is clean.

Is there some internal option in Word 2013 that I can reset or change that stops the template prompt?

Frankly I don't care if the template gets changed anyway -- I never use it and instead start w. a blank doc and set my fonts and whatever myself.

Thanks