Cannot use mouse in Word, cannot open Word by double-clicking

[asiansinc.com]

I am running Office 2003 in WinXP Pro (version 2002) SP2 on a Sony Vaio
laptop, model VGN-TX610P.

Lately my computer has been running slowly so I have been trying to get
rid of things like startup processes and other junk by going through
msconfig and running ccleaner. I think something may have caused an
error in Word.

I cannot open a Word file by clicking on it in Explorer, My Documents,
etc. Clicking on the file causes Word to open, Norton Anti-Virus to
scan for viruses, and then... nothing. No file is open. There is no new
document. Only Word is open.

I can open documents fine by CTRL-O'ing in Word, but then when it is
open I cannot use the mouse or the vertical scroll bar.

Since I use Word as my Outlook message editor the same thing happens.

Please help!

 

[Jay Freedman]

We've heard before that ccleaner and some other registry cleaners are too
aggressive and delete keys that Office needs. Try re-registering Word as
explained in http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ReRegisterWord.htm.
That will almost certainly fix the double-click-to-open problem. I don't
know whether it will help with the mouse/scrolling problem.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the newsgroup so
all may benefit.

 

[asiansinc.com]

Thanks, Jay.

I neglected to mention in my last post that I have searched far and
wide on the internet and in groups, and have already done that.

I have also deleted and re-registered the file association in
tools>folder options>file types, as well as just restoring them.

I have also tried MS Word > Help > Detect and Repair, which didn't work
either.

Please help me again!

Best,

Rich

 

[Jay Freedman]

Hi Rich,

There is something else you can look at, although I thought
reregistering with the /r switch would take care of it.

In Windows Explorer, return to the Tools > Folder Options > File Types
dialog and select the DOC extension. Now click the Advanced button. In
the next dialog, select the Open command in the list and click the
Edit button.

In the third dialog, look at the entries in the fields. In the
"Application used to perform action" box, after the full path to the
WinWord.exe file (which should be enclosed in double quotes), you
should see the switches

/n /dde

The "Use DDE" box should be checked, and the DDE Message box should
contain

[REM _DDE_Direct][FileOpen("%1")]

The "Application" box should say WinWord, and the Topic box should say
System.

Sometimes I've seen things get munged so the "%1" is missing from the
DDE Message. That parameter represents the filename of the document to
open, so Word opens without any document, as you described.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
Email cannot be acknowledged; please post all follow-ups to the
newsgroup so all may benefit.

 

[Beth Melton]

I see you are using Norton AV and that you are seeing "scanning for
viruses" message when try to open a Word document. Go to Norton
Options and in the Miscellaneous section turn off "Enable Office
Plug-in".

Please post all follow-up questions to the newsgroup. Requests for
assistance by email can not be acknowledged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beth Melton
Microsoft Office MVP

Word FAQ: http://mvps.org/word
TechTrax eZine: http://mousetrax.com/techtrax/
MVP FAQ site: http://mvps.org/