A "disappearing window" bug

[jralph]

There has been a serious bug for years, in Excel and in Word, that
permeates all the Macs that I use. I keep expecting it to be fixed so
never report it, but it never gets fixed, so...

*Open a Word or Excel document.
*Highlight some text.
*Right-click and hold to get the contextual menus. (It takes forever to
load the contextual stuff -- OK, well seconds anyway -- this is
annoying as it is).
*Either cut or clear contents (Excel) or some other operations.
*Now return to the document or to another document.
*Right click and paste (or command-V)
*Hit return.
You will be delighted to find that you loose your window!! It is still
OK, and still there somewhere, but you have to do something like
command-S (save) to get it to come back. Thereafter it will keep
disappearing at inopportune moments, cetainly every time you paste
something and hit return. The only way to fix it is to quit Word or
Excel, and open the document again. Then DO NOT use the contextual
menus (but this is really a pain).

I susupect I am NOT the only one to be bugged by it -- we have all just
learned to live with it over the years.

Thanks!
John

 

[Jim Gordon]

Hi John,

If the problem you reported were common it would certainly have been
fixed already.

In fact, I don't recall seeing anyone post this particular problem or
one similar to it in many years. Or ever, even, but that could be just a
poor memory on my part.

Regardless, in one portion of your message you say "but it never gets
fixed" which implies that you have fully updated your hardware and
software and are running the latest versions of Word and Excel. That
would be Word and Excel 2004 version 11.2.4 on MacOSX 10.4.7. Is that
what you are using?

Slow pop-ups imply that you are using a very old computer. Office 2001
on my 7200/90 with a 300mhz sonic G3 upgrade card does not exhibit any
such slow down, but I have noticed it on older, slower machines that
don't have processor upgrades. What hardware are you using? What
version of MacOS?

The disappearing window problem indicates that there is some problem
unique to your computer(s). I know of no version of Mac office that
exhibits that behavior. You say you find the problem on more than one
Mac. There is clearly something very different about the Macs you are
using. That should help with troubleshooting. What is it that is
different about the configuration of your Macs that you think would not
normally be found in other configurations?

Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

There has been a serious bug for years, in Excel and in Word, that
permeates all the Macs that I use. I keep expecting it to be fixed so
never report it, but it never gets fixed, so...

*Open a Word or Excel document.
*Highlight some text.
*Right-click and hold to get the contextual menus. (It takes forever to
load the contextual stuff -- OK, well seconds anyway -- this is
annoying as it is).
*Either cut or clear contents (Excel) or some other operations.
*Now return to the document or to another document.
*Right click and paste (or command-V)
*Hit return.
You will be delighted to find that you loose your window!! It is still
OK, and still there somewhere, but you have to do something like
command-S (save) to get it to come back. Thereafter it will keep
disappearing at inopportune moments, cetainly every time you paste
something and hit return. The only way to fix it is to quit Word or
Excel, and open the document again. Then DO NOT use the contextual
menus (but this is really a pain).

I susupect I am NOT the only one to be bugged by it -- we have all just
learned to live with it over the years.

Thanks!
John

As Jim stated, I have never heard of this either. I just tried the steps
listed above, and it works just fine. Do you have any key trapping or
shortcut software installed? The problem sure sounds like it is unique to
your configuration.

 

[jralph]

Hi Jim:

Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I am delighted to hear that it is
NOT a feature, and yet... (please see comments interspersed with yours
below)...

Hi John,

If the problem you reported were common it would certainly have been
fixed already.

In fact, I don't recall seeing anyone post this particular problem or
one similar to it in many years. Or ever, even, but that could be just a
poor memory on my part.

I need to try this on other people's machines. Will do so and report
back to you.

Regardless, in one portion of your message you say "but it never gets
fixed" which implies that you have fully updated your hardware and
software and are running the latest versions of Word and Excel. That
would be Word and Excel 2004 version 11.2.4 on MacOSX 10.4.7. Is that
what you are using?

Of course, I am always fully up to date. In fact, a new update just
came out today and that has already been installed and tried -- no
difference. (Now Word 11.2 - 060202)

Slow pop-ups imply that you are using a very old computer. Office 2001
on my 7200/90 with a 300mhz sonic G3 upgrade card does not exhibit any
such slow down, but I have noticed it on older, slower machines that
don't have processor upgrades. What hardware are you using? What
version of MacOS?

Absolutely not again. It is a dual-2.0-GHz processor G5 with 2.5 GB of
RAM. And yes, it is the absolute latest MacOS-X. And, as noted, this
has been a feature for at least a year.

The disappearing window problem indicates that there is some problem
unique to your computer(s). I know of no version of Mac office that
exhibits that behavior. You say you find the problem on more than one
Mac. There is clearly something very different about the Macs you are
using. That should help with troubleshooting. What is it that is
different about the configuration of your Macs that you think would not
normally be found in other configurations?

OK, I shall try out several other people's Macs on Monday and report
back. It happens on both of my computers, but perhaps that is not
actually that novel -- they are pretty much mirrors of each other
(although the one at Work is dual 2.5 GHz G5s).

I guess I should try re-installing Office too, but was reluctant to do
that as there are lots of upgrades and I don't know if there is a
master upgrade or they all need to be done sequentially. Anyway, if
other machines do not have the same problem, I'll do this on one of my
machines.

As far as I know, I have no unique system software -- I keep things
pretty clean (although I do run a LOT of applications).

Cheers and thanks,
John

 

[jralph]

Thanks, Bob. It is good to know that there is probably a solution from
my end.

No, I certainly do not have key trapping or shortcut software
installed. In fact I even turn off all Microsoft automatic features
(except smart quotes) -- I'll check this out if, as noted above to Jim,
testing on other computers does not reveal the fault.

Cheers and thanks,
John

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I guess I should try re-installing Office too, but was reluctant to do
that as there are lots of upgrades and I don't know if there is a
master upgrade or they all need to be done sequentially. Anyway, if
other machines do not have the same problem, I'll do this on one of my
machines.

Reinstalling Office is unlikely to fix anything, though if you do, make
sure you do so by first running the Remove Office application.

Before reinstalling, I'd suggest, with all Office apps closed, renaming
your

~:Libraryreference:Microsoft

folder (where ~ is your home directory). This will force Office apps to
create new preferences when they next start up. If any Office apps are
open when you change the name, however, they'll just write any bad prefs
back to the new folder.

If you do reinstall, I believe the latest update will fully update your
apps. If that's not the case, usingthe Microsoft AutoUpdate application
will ensure that the necessary updates are applied correctly.