Mouse function lost within Word 2003 document

[Tony]

In a terminal server/citrix environment - user in a Word 2003 document cannot
move within the document with the mouse. Only the arrow keys on the keyboard
function. All 3 Citrix servers showing the same issue. Mouse functions work
for minimizing the document or moving in other applications of Office 2003.
Is there a setting or adjustment required to make the mouse function within
the document itself

 

[Guest]

If the documents are fully editable in other ways and it is only the mouse
clicks that are not being processed, it must be a Citrix/TS setup problem. I
work remotely over Citrix with VPN as a failsafe and both work fine. I
suggest checking this in a Citrix newsgroup.

 

[Ewan McNab]

If the documents are fully editable in other ways and it is only the mouse
clicks that are not being processed, it must be a Citrix/TS setup problem. I
work remotely over Citrix with VPN as a failsafe and both work fine. I
suggest checking this in a Citrix newsgroup.

I've also had the same problem on two machines after installing Office
Pro 2003. Can move around document with cursor keys and edit ok, but can
not move around document using mouse.

The two machines are running Windows XP Pro SP2 with all the latest
updates for both Windows and Office installed.

I also cannot open word documents by double clicking on them. Word opens
OK, does the Virus check, and then no document opens. I've tried
un-installing the anti virus application and reinstalling office but
makes no difference.



Thanks

Ewan.



--
Ewan McNab
Senior Project Manager
JMW
Pentland Industrial Estate
Loanhead
Midlothian
EH20 9QH

Tel + 44 131 440 3633
Fax + 44 131 440 3637

www.jmw-group.co.uk

 

[Guest]

Anti Virus. Is this Norton Anti Virus? Is so, open NAV and under
Miscellaneous settings, disable the Office Plug-in. You may need to
reregister Word too. Best approach is to open one of the applications and
select Repair from the Help menu.

 

[John Longford]

Hi Tony and Ewan,

Long Answer short.. Your Winword is chewed.

If you are on Office 2003, a uninstall, registry cleaner, install sequence
can work.

If you are on Office 2007, God help you and me too becos we are in the same
boat. I have had this prob for over a month now....

Tell you what, there is a similarity in all the posts that I have read on
this... All the users are on Winxp sp2... Maybe some component got updated by
MS live updates and the Winword team did not do a good job with the testing
compatibility, becos all other apps run just fine...

Tried a lot of stuff to get rid of this prob as Word is a key app for me,
but I found a dirty work around that I am using ...

Winword /a starts in safe mode and guess what, the prob is not there. Then
the workaround involves opening the registry and changing all references to
the startup command from winword to winword /a .....

Dirty ..... truly dirty but I need to get it done and maybe all these MVPs
won't agree but it works.. Only Create new Doc from the start bar does not
work.. some stupid setting somewhere I guess.

Also another possibility ( that did not work for me ) .. open file explorer
- file types, advanced, check open/new/edit .............in the command it
needs to be winword /n "%1" instead of just %1.. I am referring to the double
quotes only.

Hope it helps.. if not you can join me in my prayers - "Our father in MS
heaven, Holy be thy name......"

 

[Guest]

If winword /a works, then check for a third party add-in. See
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/Customization/CheckIfAddinsInstalled.htm

Terry Farrell - Word MVP

 

[Beth Melton]

Wow! Where have you been getting this advice? I'm not against using
dirty workarounds but in this case there really isn't a reason to keep
forcing Word to start using the /a switch. As Terry noted, if the
issue doesn't occur when you start Word using the /a switch then the
cause is a third-party.

When you start Word using the /a switch it places it in a
troubleshooting mode which prevents Normal.dot, add-in, and personal
preferences from loading - it loads it using the factory defaults.
IOW, it means there is nothing wrong with your Word installation.

You need to follow the instruction in the article Terry referenced.
Now, if after you check for add-ins described in the article and you
still have found nothing there is another type of COM Add-in, (those
that are installed per machine) that doesn't display in the COM
Add-ins dialog box in the application. If that's the case then take a
look at this article (forget the title in this situation) and use
methods 3 and 4 to help you locate the add-in:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;555220

The reason you are seeing a lot of others having problems with Word in
this forum is because this forum is dedicated to Word application
errors. The fact that most use Windows XP SP2 isn't really a viable
reason for the problems - it's simply the most common setup these
days.

Regarding the file types: these are only used when you open a file
outside the application. They are instructions for the operating
system for which application to start and how to load the file. They
have nothing to do which errors encountered in Word. Also, it looks
like yours are not correct - you should be using DDE to open the file
( ("%1") represents the file name):

To recreate them use this command at Start/Run:

winword /r

Note the space before the forward slash.

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

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

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

 

[John Longford]

Dear Beth and Terry,

Thanks for the kind advice and the rebuff on my workaround solution.
Somewhere, as technologists ( me included) we sometimes fail to understand
the magnitude of the problem from the user's eyes. Some of your colleagues
may be breathing and eating MS Office poduct as their prime development
product but to the end user it is an important tool used by him to achieve
his objectives from documents like doc,xls etc.

For me too it was all the more imp to get the app running.

Having read thru your posts, Terry's link could not be related to the Word
2007 at all. But did understand the what he was trying to say. Running normal
word ( minus the /a option) in word options the selection never ran beyond
the first item on the left hand tab in the Word-Options. Winword/a showed me
the content in the same option but no way to uncheck the Add Ins.

Then reading through Beth's post, I said lemme try getting rid of the Apps
itself which had the Add Ins. So I uninstalled Laserfiche client and
MindManager apps. And when I started Winword Again, things were back normal
again.

Now couple of questions here which I am sure everyone will dodge. If you
install a new version of Office, who is responsible to ensure compatibility
with the other existing apps which are required by business ??? Of course I
know there is no easy answers here...

Another point, The app was running fine with the addins till about a month
back. which reinforces my belief that some update to dll or registry by
Windows Updates, messed up my Office Installation.

Now for the trouble of uninstalling everything Office and reinstalling it
back to reset the registry hacks.

Thanks guys. Appreciate it.

 

[Tony]

Thanks for all the advice but none of this has resolves the issue. I read and
followed article indicated and the Word 2003 installation here does not show
anything in terms of add-ins. Have only had this situation once on a
standalone workstation and the uninstall, registry clean and re-install
worked. Was hoping to be able to avoid this procedure on 3 Citrix/terminal
servers since the issue just started after about 6 months of working fine -
leads me to believe an update somewhere along the lines has caused this.
Still looking for a resolution short of uninstall - reinstall

 

[Beth Melton]

I'm glad to hear you finally solved the problem and no longer need to
use a workaround.

I won't dodge your question - It could be both. Although the primary
"fault" lies in the hands of the developer. Typically they include a
error, not an outright error that will arise during the design, but
errors caused by sloppy coding or because they have made various
assumptions, such as users will only be using their add-in and won't
have any others. Or perhaps they aren't verifying the version of the
application for various situations, such as an option that may have
been added in a later version but wasn't present in a previous
version. Many times if they only included proper error handlers you
would still get an error but it wouldn't result in the inability to
run the application.

Now, there is a possibility that Microsoft could make a change in the
application in another version, or in an update, that ends up breaking
an add-in. The big question here is what exactly broke the add-in? Is
the underlying cause due to a bad add-in to begin with? Or are there a
multitude of add-ins causing issues in a new version or after an
update?

I think the bottom line is it's really not Microsoft's responsibility
to test everyone's add-ins. I think they may test new versions with
some of the more well-known add-ins but don't quote me on that. ;-) I
do know that during beta testing some issues do become known if a beta
tester has an add-in and finds it creates an error or doesn't function
correctly. At that point Microsoft either finds they created the issue
and corrects it or that the developer needs to correct their add-in.

Microsoft has also taken strides in trying to prevent users from
encountering errors that prevent the application from running.
Ideally, if Word has crashed every time it starts a certain number of
times (I don't recall the exact number) then it will automatically
prompt you to disable an add-ins that are loading when Word starts.
Unfortunately it doesn't work every time but with each version it gets
better as they gain more insight as to the types of issue and add-in
developer can create. They also have Office Diagnostics utility that
can help diagnose and repair issues. Again, not perfect but there are
so many variables when it comes to programming that it's difficult to
trap every single issue or have knowledge of all of them - which is
why there is a dedicated newsgroup for application errors. ;-)

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

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

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

 

[aalaan]

Beautifully put. The fact is that Word is an *Extremely* complex program,
and no-one on Earth can provide for every possible conflict.

 

[John Longford]

Dear Beth and Aalan,

Appreciate Beth's answer and do acknowledge the efforts of the developer who
has to survive among the million plus lines of code.

Couple of points here as a very experienced hand at development areas,
1. Does a word application "have to be" as complex as rocket science ? I am
sure biz reqt and product differentiation pressures may have been compelling
reasons.
2. I had no similar Add-in problems in Excel/Access/Visio/PPT although it
seemed to infect only Word. A hint here about product integrated testing on
non-core components.
3. Tried the Diagnostic option 3-4 times and the poor thing just kept saying
all is well. At least the online site should have had some cross check
ability to verify the user install copy with the reference installation at
MS. That way a diff can be reported which can be investigated.
4. As regards the passing around of Add-in quality, both the guys (
Laserfiche and Mindmanager XP ) are pretty popular guys and have substantial
installations. Maybe it may not be that their code is bad... I am sure they
must have also built it to a certain API set as published by MS for COM/OLE
components. Now if down the line if those API contracts change, can we truly
blame the add-in builder. Ya, you guessed it MS makes the tracks and the Rail
coaches as well.
5. As regards the crashes-recovery and analysis, reporting has to be water
tight. If it isn't it defeats the entire bug track-fix process line.

Finally, definitely thankful for you guys for your time and effort in
helping end users like me and hope that you guys get better in your fire
fighting abilities to put of fires started by developers, bad testing, mad
users, crasy addin builders.....

 

[Beth Melton]

Word add-ins do tend to be different that those found in the other
applications. I'm not sure why that is, really. For example in Excel
and PPT you can simply use the Add-ins dialog box and load an add-in.
Word, OTOH, you need to use a Startup folder. While you can use the
Add-ins dialog box (which is a bit different) it won't load each time
Word starts. COM Add-ins btw, are a different beast.

I've often wondered if the reason we do see more issues with add-ins
in Word is due to the number of them that are available - there are
more created for Word than other applications. Believe it or not,
while it may seem simplistic, Word is more complex because it isn't as
structured as Excel or PPT.

Microsoft never really hasn't been a set of "best practices" developed
or set of guidelines for add-in developers. I've always thought
something this would help resolve some of the issues we see - even
some of the add-ins Microsoft has created issues in Word. I had the
opportunity to pitch this idea for Word 2007 and it was well received.
Now it's just matter of waiting to see if anything is actually done
about it.

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

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

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