I've been annoyed following recent Office updates because Word's Normal template is missing, or more accurately, it's renamed to NormalOld.dotm and a new Normal template is created. I lose my macros and other customizations and need to go to %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates to delete the Normal template and rename the old normal template.
The third time it happened moved the old Normal template to Documents, renamed it and created a shortcut to it. After removing ' - Shortcut' from the name, so both the template and shortcut names were identical, I moved the shortcut into the StartUp folder under %appdata%\Microsoft\Word. Word loads the template automatically, and because the actual template is stored in an easily accessible folder, it's easy to edit or backup.
Outlook's NormalEmail template is also renamed and replaced, however I didn't have it customized. If you are missing customizations such as autotext entries and styles, you'll need to restore the old NormalEmail template.