Turn off virus scanning in Word

Ever since I put in office 2000, I have to wait minutes before my Word documents open up. If they're password protected? I juct close and give up. The document wants me to wait while it requests a virus check. The title bar flashes and I can't use any options buttons. When an option finally opens up? It yells at me that it's waiting on me to do something in this non-existent dialog we've been having. I'm tired of it. I thought I had checked an option once to stop this but now I can't find anything remotely related to a choice of virus scan options.
I don't need to check my documents. I wrote them. I know where they come from.

What AV are you using ? does it do this if you disable your AV ?

Norton. It doesn't matter if it's on or off. The request is coming from Word itself. It has something to do with the Macro security level. The Help files don't give a clear answer on this subject either.

Go to Tools> Macro> Security and change the setting, see what happens.

I use the High setting.

how about going in nav autoprotect under misc and unchecking msoffice plugin

Try typing 'winword /a' in the run dialog box (Start>Run) to open Word without custom modifications - does it still do the same thing then?

Unisol is brilliant.