when typing, document becomes inactive

[Guest]

I am having a problem when typing in Word and Excel documents. I will be
typing and suddenly the characters stop appearing, the title bar is no longer
lit up. I have to click in the document several times to be able to continue
typing. This is happening on my desktop and laptop computers. I am
wondering if it is some type of virus, however I have virus protection. Any
suggestions?

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?YmV2ZXJseWRhd24=?=,

I am having a problem when typing in Word and Excel documents. I will be
typing and suddenly the characters stop appearing, the title bar is no longer
lit up. I have to click in the document several times to be able to continue
typing. This is happening on my desktop and laptop computers. I am
wondering if it is some type of virus, however I have virus protection.

I'd be more inclined to say there's some software that's "grabbing" the focus. I
have a couple of older apps that do this, although usually their windows come to
the front. If you boot Windows in Safe Mode, and the problem goes away, you can
be pretty sure it's something like that.

There's also the possibility it could be an Office Add-in of some sort. If you
start an Office application in Safe Mode (I can tell you how if you tell us the
version of Office) and the problem goes away, that's where to look.

Finally, I've noticed this happen to me if my fingers hit one of the "Windows"
keys instead of Alt or Ctrl. You want to make sure it's not this that's
happening to you

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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