excel locks up after selecting a cell

[Guest]

I have a laptop...so the problem is not a scrolling mouse wheel.....when I
select a cell in the workbook it will not let it go....as I move the mouse
around it keeps selecting all the sells as if i have the mouse held
down....do not appear to have a key stuck either......however...when the cell
is selected...(before i click the cursor in a cell) i can move around to
different cells with the arrow keys and it only selects one cell at a
time...like it is suppose to...as soon as I click with the mouse the whole
spreadsheet continues to be selected wherever i move the mouse...even if i
move the mouse off the spreadsheet....it just keeps selecting all the cells
in that direction....HELP

 

[Gord Dibben]

A common cause of this is that you are in "Extended" or "Add" mode.

If you see "EXT" or "ADD" down on the status bar try hitting F8 key a couple
of times.

F8 will will toggle you in and out of Extended mode. SHIFT + F8 will put you
in "ADD" mode.

If you are using a wheel-mouse tap the wheel a couple times.

Also see David McRitchie's "Ghosting" at

http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/ghosting.txt

Gord Dibben Excel MVP

 

[Guest]

the add ore extended modes is not what it does......with those problems you
need to keep clicking the mouse.....what happens is that I click ONCE and
then as I move the mouse around, without clicking, it continues to highlight
everything i move the cursor over....if i move the cursor to the bottom off
the sheet...like over the task bar...it continues to select down the
sheet...hundreds and hundred of cells...I must then close it out and
reopen...it still does it...then i restarted the computer and it went
away...but it will come back again...by the way, once i have one cell
selected and it does what i described above...you cannot access anything on
the screen or within any menus.....very strange.

 

[Gord Dibben]

One correction to my post.........

With the "ADD" mode you need to re-click the mouse. This is used to select
non-contiguous cells and ranges without using the CTRL key.

With the "EXT" mode you just click once and drag. All cells will be selected.

Sounds to me like you are in "EXT" mode. Did you try the F8 key?


Gord

 

[Guest]

NO, I am not in add ore ext mode. .....and I can select a cell and release
the mouse.....not drag...and as I move the curser.....(not clicking the mouse
at all)..it acts like I am dragging somewhere....I just move the mouse
everywhere and it selects everything...if I move the cursor to the right it
keeps selecting forever....cant access menus....have to close excel
down...once this thing catches..nothing else is able to happen....cant even
close excel the X button in the top right...have to right click on the
taskbar and close......and as I am doing that...because I am off the
worksheet...it continues to scroll down......F8 does n!!??othing....alt
F8....everything doesnt work

 

[Gord Dibben]

Scott

If you have read the material on David McRitchie's site(URL was included in mu
first post)and tried all the suggestions there, I have nothing else for you.


Gord

 

[Guest]

Check the Tap Sensor in your touch pad properties dialog window. I don't know
for sure but on mine it is the "Buttons" tab, you will lok for "Turn off
Click Lock". Hope this helps.

 

[bebonham]

I feel you pal, I have the exact same problem, windows me office 2002
sbe I have other machine and I have played with ext / add but I am sure
you agree, it is _not_ that.

here is what I can add to the description of the problem.

1. It only happens when you click on the worksheet or the arrows at
bottom that let you move thru the worksheets. You can use all the
menus, open documents, edit them fine using the keyboard. If you click
the worksheet or try to change worksheet by clicking then it breaks.

2. When it breaks, it is _exactly_ like you had never released the
mouse button. It prevents excel from recieving any other messages, but
the system can still recieve clicks and keystrokes.

3. I agree it occurs intermittently, but at the momement, even after
many reboots, it is always happening.

I haven't really tried anything to fix it yet. I am sure there are no
viruses or spy/ad ware on the system. I don't have the office sbe
disks handy, so I could try reparing or uninstall reinstall. I'm
sceptical a repair would fix this.

Since this is a new problem, could it have to do with any recent
windows updates?
(this occurred about jan 18 within 5 days)

thanks for any input!!