software, windows

Annoying Word 2007 problem: can’t select text

368 Comments

I run Word 2007 on Vista. Today I hit a curious problem. Word opened, but something was badly wrong. I could not select text with the mouse. The document scroll bar did not work. Word crashed on exit. And going into Options – Addins, I could not navigate beyond the “Popular” section.

After several crashes an Office Diagnostics wizard popped up and offered to help. Kind of it. It chugged through numerous tests and finally told me it could not see anything wrong. Never mind.

Checking the newgroups, I found fellow-sufferers but no solution. I decided to be methodical. I started Word in safe mode. (winword /a). It worked. Probably an add-in. I went to the COM add-ins and tried to disable them. Message: “The connected state of Office add-ins registered in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE cannot be changed”. OK, registry then. Navigated to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins

Found three add-ins listed. I changed the value of the LoadBehavior key from 3 to 0 for each add-in.

Word now worked OK, but still crashed on closing. I found I could restore two of the add-ins without problems. The guilty party: OfficePrintAddIn, a component of Flash Paper.

I had a look at active templates. There was one called FlashPaperWordUITemplate.2302.dot. If I tried to unload it, Word crashed. Perhaps it needs the related COM add-in to be loaded. I closed Word, found the template file, and deleted it. Everything is fine now.

A quicker route might be to uninstall Macromedia Flash Paper, unless you use this of course.

I’m still puzzled about why this problem only showed up today. I’d not made any changes to Flash Paper or Word that I’m aware of. And I don’t blame Macromedia (now Adobe) for this; Word 2007 did not exist when this Flash add-in was released.

Posted in the hope that it saves someone else some time.

 

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368 thoughts on “Annoying Word 2007 problem: can’t select text”

  1. Same (Vista) Word crash problem, add-in called WordEEFonts. Turns out to be a Microsoft Word Font Repair Macro assisting “earlier Eastern European versions” of Word in displaying non-standard characters. Changed LoadBehaviour from 8 (!?) to 0, probably too early to say it helps. “Data” registry key, after deletion, immediately reappears as soon as Word is loaded. Always. I haven’t seen this latter effect in any earlier item in this thread. Anyone any suggestions?

  2. I was having the same problem with no right click working or when I tried to close Word it would ALWAYS crash!! This solution works!!!!!

    1. Exit all Office programs.
    2. Click Start , type regedit in the Start Search box, and then press ENTER.
    3. Locate and then click the following registry subkey:
    HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0WordData
    4. On the Edit menu, click Delete, and then click Yes.
    5. Exit Registry Editor.
    6. Restart Word.

  3. Thanks Mark! (post #24)

    I was going nuts until I read that MS page you linked to.. extremely helpful! I had to rename normal.dot to stop a plug-in (Word wouldn’t say which one) from crashing Word every time I started it.

  4. Great forum. Had the same problem and thanks to the detailed instructions it is fixed. I only changed the key name and this eliminated both problems. I can use my mouse again and I word does not give me a crashing message that the problem needs to find a solution. Thank you so much!!!

  5. Great Posting. Helped restore my sanity after 2 re-installs and trying the delet data folder with futility..

    Good to be able to restart using the Word 2007 mouse functions..

    Actually now actively considering switching to OpenOffice suite considering what great complexity our folks at MS build into their bloatware.

    Thanks again.

  6. This is why the Internet is such a great tool. Folks like Tim and Bence make the world a much better place. Thanks for cutting short my hours of frustration. You ROCK!

  10. Thanks a lot. This forum helped me resolving my problem with Word 2007. I took the following help.

    Microsoft Word 2007 Crashes
    1. Word crashes upon exit with message “Word has stopped working”.
    2. Unable to use mouse in Word.

    To resolve the above problems do the following:
    1. Close Word and Outlook
    2. Start / Run and type regedit
    3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0WordData
    4. Rename this key.
    5. Restart Word

    If above does not solve the problem completely, do the following:
    1. Close Word and Outlook
    2. Start / Run and type regedit
    3. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftOfficeWordAddins
    4. Set the value of the Key LoadBehavior of all Addins to “0” from “3”

  11. I found that renaming the “Data” entry in Registry, as described by several of you, including Lal in May 24, solved my problem and allowed me to restore all the add-ins, including the one that initially prevented my mouse from working. Initially I disabled SnagIt and found that the mouse returned to normal. But Word continued to crash, even after I removed the SnagIt template (.dot). After I renamed the “data” entry, the crashing stopped, and I was able to restore all the SnagIt items, including the template. Anyone interested might try restoring their Add-ins to see if they get the same result.

  12. Many thanks Tim and Bence. Renaming the key worked. I am using Word everyday and for two days I couldn’t work. I am really glad it could be solved this easily.

  14. This thread came up immediately on my first search. The SnagIt8 Add-In for Word was my problem. I disabled it and now I’m good to go. Thanks!!

  15. Help. I am having the same problem, but do not understand about “add-ins” Can someone email me the step by step to get my mouse to work properly in word 07? Also in the upper right hand corner the Past, copy and Cut option are not lettin gme click on them either?/ HELP! 🙂

    Thanks Kathi
    Irishredhead1969@yahoo.com

  16. I renamed this key: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0WordData

    It worked. I renamed it olddata. I also have snagit 8 but I didnt touch the addin. Renaming the reg fixes this problem. Thank you!

  18. Thanks to all of you good people… I had got to the point of almost throwing my laptop out of the window, when I found this forum. Changed the value of an addin from 3 to 0 and it worked.. You saved my laptop, guys! 🙂

  19. Now that I changed the key name I can stop pulling my damn hair out! This is one of the most detail posts ever and the comments are full of awesome tidbits too. I can’t wait to get a new version of word. This has been getting under my skin for the longest time and I’m a writer and use word constantly. Thank and keep up this awesome posting.

  20. Invaluable! Thank you. A word to the less computer savvy… if you can remember what add-ins you have in word (if a program has an add-in for word, then it usually displays as a new icon in your word menu bar) and you can live without it, then just uninstall it!
    I uninstalled SnagIt8 from my machine and didn’t need to mess around with the registry. Word worked perfectly the next time I opened it.

  21. Great post and follow up comments. I have word 2007 and Vista, and I did the registry edit (see below) and restarted and word works now.

    1. Close Word and Outlook
    2. Start / Run and type regedit
    3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0WordData
    4. Rename this key.
    5. Restart Word

  22. What a nightmare! Lost many hours. Thanks to all who contributed. Disabling an (unknown) add-in through the registry worked. Where is Microsoft’s response to this serious and debilitating issue? Happy Father’s Day to all dads.

  23. Bence,
    The solution you described in your March 15, 2007 post regarding the Word 2007 “can’t select text” problem worked fine for me. Many thanks!

  24. Thanks for the post. Had very similar symptoms. I could not uninstall the offending templates as ever time I tried Word would crash. The steps below were the trick for finally getting rid of those add-in templates:

    1. Close Word and Outlook
    2. Start / Run and type regedit
    3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0WordData
    4. Rename this key.
    5. Restart Word

    Thanks

    Will

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