You can protect document templates from being changed and deleted by setting the file attributes to read-only. When you do this, the template is still available for applying to documents, but it is protected from being changed.

You can also hide templates by setting the file attributes to hidden. When you do this, the template is not displayed in the list of templates in the New dialog box in Word (or the Templates dialog box in Word), the Style Gallery dialog box, or the Templates and Add-Ins dialog box, unless the user has selected the option to display hidden files in Windows Explorer.

You change the file attributes of a template using Windows Explorer. You can also set permissions to define which users have read access, write access, full control, and no access. For more information on file attributes and permissions, see the Windows documentation.