MS Word error - The disk is full. Free some space on this drive,
or save the document on another disk.

I have been working on a project where I received some macro code via email. After I made some changes to the files, I tried to save the file to a new name. I could not save the file anywhere on my computer, except as an RTF file. The RTF file format is useless - MS Word warned me that it would not save any of the macros.

This bogus "disk is full error" is a problem that many other users have seen. After several months of searching, I found an answer that worked for me. I can't link to it, since that web site is no longer available:
http://www.productivitytalk.com/forums/topic/624645-disk-is-full-error-message/

The solution appears to be related to corruption in Word's normal.dot file. I closed Word, deleted the normal.dot file and restarted Word. Then I was able to open and edit those other macro files, and save my changes - but not to a *.dot file. I had to first save to a *.doc file, then change the file extension.

UPDATE
The problem has returned in 2016, and I could not fix it as described above. It appears to be related to the protection provided by my antivirus software. As a test, I set up a virtual machine with no antivirus software, and did not experience this error message.

NOTE
For Windows 7 Professional, the normal.dot file is located in a folder like this: C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Templates

Last modified: June 21, 2016