The File - New selection shouuld show you a "new box" that will show all of the ".dot" files you have available.

In recent "Office" versions, the templates are usually in C:\Program Files\Office\Templates. In older versions they were usually just in a C:\...\Word directory.

In Word, you may need to select Tools - Options, and on the "File Locations" tab, set a location for Word to look in to find your "dot files."

Especially in recent versions, Office comes with a whole bunch of rather intrusive gizmos (I think they refer to them as "presets,") that a lot of people find more annoying than helpful, and they get deleted. Unfotunately, a few of them that may actually be helpful sometimes get dumped.

I'd suggest you do a search for files named "*.dot" and see where yours are - if any, then "point" Word at them with the File Locations setting. As mentioned above, Word will "recreate" the default normal.dot, so if you find one normal.dot, that's where it's "defaulting" to. If you find more than one, then one of them is probably where your "templates" pointer used to be aimed.

It's generally good practice to keep all of your templates in one separate subdirectory. Once you get that working, you can also "hide" ones you don't use somewhere else, and copy them back if you need them occasionally but don't want to sort through them every time you open-new.

If you're using a "full suite" Office, the "template" location in Word may set where all of the Office programs look. If you have "single program" installations of Excel etc., each of them should have its own similar setting.

Like with Windows, you can usually use your Office install disk to "restore": Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs, if something has been accidentally removed.

John