Having strange attachment/GUI problems after installing O2007

[PC Pete]

I've recently installed Office 2007 Professional Plus (removing Office XP in
the process, but I can't honestly call it an "upgrade" with a straight face),
and I've noticed some rather bizarre behaviour with many system GUI functions
since the install. So I applied the SP1 package hoping that it would fix some
of the problems, but instead it's worse than ever.

One of the problems is that I can't actually open any attachments from
within Outlook any longer!

The attachments appear normally, in other words they are NOT from a blocked
sender, and they are NOT level 1 attachments. But when I click on an
attachment button (either in the reading pane or as a standalone message
window), the little graphic buttony-thing seems to start to respond to the
click (the borders are highlighted), but then it immediately stops (the whole
GUI control flashes quickly then reverts to un-selected and un-highlighted)
and I can't do a thing with it.

It almost seems as if some process is very quickly taking focus away from
the currently selected control, but I've clean-booted and with nothing except
PVW (plain vanilla windows) running, the same behaviour occurs.

I'm even seeing silly things like not being able to select text in memo
fields such as this one I'm using to post this problem. I can click anywhere
to place the cursor, but I can't actually select (click+drag) with the mouse!

And I can't resize any window control properly, as it seems to smooth-drag
and so the edges "slalom" around the screen when I try to resize windows
(even non-office windows!).

Since the only thing that has been installed or modified in the past 72
hours is Office 2007, and since the problems have only been appearing in the
past 72 hours, I hope I'm correct in putting 2 and 2 together to make 4!

If anyone has any suggestions or points of reference I can use to solve the
behaviour, I'd very much appreciate it! (FWIW, I've reviewed as many
troubleshooting guides and help searches without success in finding issues
like this).

There doesn't appear to be any error message of any kind that I can see,
either in Outlook or in the Event Viewer.

I'm running Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, build 3790, SP2 plus all
hotfixes. No other application or package of any kind has been installed
since the O2007 install.
-PCP

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

Did you create a new profile and a new pst? It's highly recommended when
upgrading from older versions.

--
Diane Poremsky [MVP - Outlook]



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[PC Pete]

Hi Diane!

Thanks so much for the suggestion. I didn't even think about the
implications of the change to a new version with my old profile settings and
pst architecture. That's the next thing I'm going to do today!

But I think I've figured out what the problem actually was...

I had not uninstalled the Office 2007 compatibility pack before installing
O2007. I completely forgot I had it installed.

So just on a whim, (actually it was because there were just so many bizarre
and completely inexplicable things going wrong with my entire server that I
was desperately trying to find anything that could be causing the problems) I
uninstalled the compatibility pack and rebooted, and all the bizarre
behaviour has completely gone, and I can now move splitter bars, open email
attachments, resize application windows, and select text using the mouse once
again.

I can't say for certain that the compatibilty pack was the problem (I'm
surprised if it could cause such drastic and system-wide aberrant behaviour),
but considering that all the bizarre behaviour I experienced only started
after installing Office 2007, and considering that the only change I've made
to this system since has been to uninstall the compatibility pack, and
considering that all the problems have completely disappeared since
uninstalling it, I'm saying that in this case, 2 plus 2 does actually equal
22.

Thanks again for your help! It's nice to know someone's listening...