I Fixed a Major Issue With Word - I'm So Proud of Me!

Duleigh

Just an old dog
Joined
Dec 12, 2004
Posts
5,083
A very long time ago I used to be advanced technical support for Microsoft Word (Word version 6.0 on Clone Macs) which is why it continues to be my favorite computer game* but lately I've been having just the most bizarre problem on the newest and "best" version of Word (Version 2308 Build 16.0.16717.20000) When I would open a large document the document and try to get to the end of the document, the document would just start jumping all over the screen and end back up at the top of the first page. The bigger the document the worse it would jump around and it was taking up to 5 full minutes for the damn thing to settle down.

I called tech support a couple of times but to me it was obvious they were stumped. They tried a few tricks that "fixed" the problem temporarily, it always came back. One "fix" involved removing then reinstalling Word but it always came back. They saw the issue using remote desktop and it seriously freaked out support but It seriously freaked out support. I sat down and let my inner geek out - when you uninstall word, what gets left behind, that's got to be the problem for a new install to spaz out like that... The registry! There are registry entries that get left behind, that is to allow your customizations to remain when you install an upgrade.

I dug down, found the Word data registry key, backed it up and deleted it. No fix, and that took out all my customizations, so I reinstalled that key and tried the options key - bingo! I'm back in love with Word. I thought that geeky little nerd was killed off by Comcast but he's still there when I need him!
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* I consider Word a game because deep down inside it hasn't changed since the 1990s. When Microsoft puts out a Whole New Word it's game on! The changes are usually very shallow, just changes to the appearence. But WebWord, that's something new, and I can't get "under the hood" on that.
 
Well done !
Sadly, my version of Word did not like to work under Windoze 11.
I did not fancy paying out a bloody fortune for some newer version,
so I now use Libre Office 7.4.
I do have a few problems, but I suspect that they are, to a large
extent, lack of familiarity on my part and a crap Instruction suite.
 
Yeah, they made a few tweaks to Win11 to force upgrading MSoffice. The good news is that the web based MS Word is free. I've been comparing web and desktop versions and right now the only difference that I didn't like was that it was a pain to get the web based Word to read your document out loud. Other than that, the web base and desktop base looked and worked like each other, as long as you don't mind using a browser for your word processer. And I've become so addicted to storing my files on line I'll never give up that option.

To be honest I had to look up what Libre office was - it's the grandchild of StarOffice.
 
I'd be lost without my MS Word 360. I love my Word; I love my Word, until the pointer, all on its own, moves hither, tither, and yon. That is usually on longer documents. Like PDFs of books I've stolen, I mean downloaded, from Project Gutenberg. Okay, it isn't actually theft it just feels like stealing.
 
Does it let you store files locally (and not in MS's cloud), and, if so, is the stored file in the same format as the "bought" version?
Yes and Yes. your hard drive, .docx, and .doc are fully supported.
I'd be lost without my MS Word 360. I love my Word; I love my Word, until the pointer, all on its own, moves hither, tither, and yon. That is usually on longer documents.
It sounds like what I had, and it will eventually get worse. If it is, here's the fix, I used method 4 to fix it
 
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