Microsoft word 2010, errors on startup

I got a virus on my laptop, ever since then I’ve been getting messages like the below when I start word:

“The add-in template is not valid”

This was happening 3 times every time I was going into word – super frustrating.  I was going into word, I could not delete the add-ins.  I was searching the registry – nothing.

No delete..

 

Then I found (after searching the C:\) this folder location.  Word tries to load all of the templates in this dir (great place for a virus to start?) when word starts.  I deleted the dodgy files from this dir, and now work starts fine! woot.

C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Word\STARTUP