BUG: Ctrl+W kills email

S

Steve

I'm using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 (11.6359.6360) SP1 and ran into a bug
that is really nasty. Type an email and instead of holding "shift" when
trying to type an uppercase 'W', perform the highly-likely-to-occur error of
holding down the control key. *POOF* your email will disappear.

So let me get this straight; an application can go unresponsive for no
reason and you can click the [X] symbol and press the "end now" button on the
dialog to terminate the application and the application will not end now.
You can click that "end now" button until the cows come home without seeing
the application "end now", but in the middle of typing an email I can
accidently press "Ctrl+W" instead of "Shift+W" and my entire unsaved email
will immediately disappear without so much as a warning?

Is it any wonder people hate computers so much? Is it really necessary to
have so many freaking hotkeys that any misplacement of the fingers will
result in some dangerous unexpected action? Is it possible to disable
hotkeys that are completely useless - or in this case dangerous?
 
M

Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

"There are seldom technological solutions for behavioral problems"

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After furious head scratching, Steve asked:

| I'm using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 (11.6359.6360) SP1 and ran
| into a bug that is really nasty. Type an email and instead of
| holding "shift" when trying to type an uppercase 'W', perform the
| highly-likely-to-occur error of holding down the control key. *POOF*
| your email will disappear.
|
| So let me get this straight; an application can go unresponsive for no
| reason and you can click the [X] symbol and press the "end now"
| button on the dialog to terminate the application and the application
| will not end now. You can click that "end now" button until the cows
| come home without seeing the application "end now", but in the middle
| of typing an email I can accidently press "Ctrl+W" instead of
| "Shift+W" and my entire unsaved email will immediately disappear
| without so much as a warning?
|
| Is it any wonder people hate computers so much? Is it really
| necessary to have so many freaking hotkeys that any misplacement of
| the fingers will result in some dangerous unexpected action? Is it
| possible to disable hotkeys that are completely useless - or in this
| case dangerous?
 
I

IanRoy

I'm using Outlook 2003 on XP, and using ctrl+w brings up the "Do you want to
save changes?" dialog. If that is not happening for Steve, then he has a
technological problem.
 
V

_Vanguard_

Steve said:
I'm using Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 (11.6359.6360) SP1 and ran
into a bug
that is really nasty. Type an email and instead of holding "shift"
when
trying to type an uppercase 'W', perform the highly-likely-to-occur
error of
holding down the control key. *POOF* your email will disappear.

So let me get this straight; an application can go unresponsive for no
reason and you can click the [X] symbol and press the "end now" button
on the
dialog to terminate the application and the application will not end
now.
You can click that "end now" button until the cows come home without
seeing
the application "end now", but in the middle of typing an email I can
accidently press "Ctrl+W" instead of "Shift+W" and my entire unsaved
email
will immediately disappear without so much as a warning?
Click to expand...

The Ctrl and Shift keys have been next to each other on PC keyboards for
a very long time. So it isn't just Ctrl+W versus Shift+W with which you
have a problem. It is Ctrl+anykey versus Shift+anykey that is your
problem. Perhaps YOU need to practice more on your keyboarding skills,
or stop using tiny keyboards for those fat fingers. ;-)

I'm sure there are some folks that make the same complaint about the
Power button being close to the Reset button on their system case. The
computer knows only what you told it to do, not what you meant to do.
Is it any wonder people hate computers so much? Is it really
necessary to
have so many freaking hotkeys that any misplacement of the fingers
will
result in some dangerous unexpected action? Is it possible to disable
hotkeys that are completely useless - or in this case dangerous?
Click to expand...

At one time when computers were not so prevalent amongst the untrained
multitudes, computers were hailed as making life easier. Now that
personal computers are in the hands of so many uneducated (and who often
wish to remain that way), it has become clear within that community of
users that the purpose of computers is to maintain or raise their level
of frustration. It is impossible to write software that compensates or
recovers from every user error.
 
S

Steve

Excuse me?

How crazy of me to complain about an easily-mistyped keystroke causing my
email to completely disappear without warning.
 
S

Steve

_Vanguard_ thank you for your completely ridiculous response. I can type
very well, but like every single other person who uses a keyboard I will
accidently hit the wrong key from time to time.

The thing I find so obnoxious about the attitude of software apologists like
you is that we're supposed to believe that all problems that ever occur with
using software are the fault of the user, yet somehow accept that bug fixes
and software upgrades don't interfere with that perfection which supposedly
already existed.

It is bad design for the common keystroke for creating an uppercase letter
to result in the entire document closing without warning if the user's finger
was 1/4th of an inch off target.
 
S

Steve

This "Milly Staples" sounds like the kind of person who, from time to time,
pulls his nose out of the ass of his lifesized poster of Bill Gates to get
revenge against the world by tormenting people across the internet. I would
have loved to have had this exchange face-to-face.

Computer geeks. Can't live with them...
 
I

IanRoy

Hello Steve,

I too find that attitude strange. I've been able to replicate your problem
twice, by typing control+W before typing anything else into the e-mail, but
not always, and never after I've typed anything else. I almost always get the
save dialog, which is what should happen to prevent exactly that problem. I
don't think your experience is what Microsoft programmers intended. You might
try Add/Remove Programs> Microsoft Office (or Outlook)> Change> Repair.

Best Wishes,
IanRoy
 
S

Steve

Thanks IanRoy for looking into this problem and actually being open to the
radical concept that a software glitch has occurred. Maybe I don't have the
latest Office updates, and I don't have SP2 yet so maybe the fix is in there.
It would be nice if the "Ctrl+W" hotkey feature would at least appear in one
of the popdown menus so users know it exists!

One odd thing I noticed is that the "Paste Special" option always seems to
appear in the Edit menu when I expect, but in the old Outlook 2000 it did
not. Then when I would paste the text it would appear in the formatting of
the app it was copied from instead of the formatting being used at that point
in the email. Since "paste special" wasn't around I had to paste into
Notepad first then copy from there to Outlook. In 2003, the "paste special"
option is never grayed out when I need it so that allows me to skip that
Notepad step. The reason I mention this is that Outlook 2000 (I think it was
2000) and Outlook 2003 have different behavior, yet as Milly Staples and
_Vanguard_ know, problems with software can never be the application's fault!
I'd love to know how they can explain how two versions of an app can have
perfectly implemented features that behave in different ways!
 
I

IanRoy

Hello Steve,
I don't have SP2 either, so I don't think that's the problem. "Ctrl+W" is a
standard way of closing windows, it's been around for years. If a document
has unsaved changes, it normally brings up the "Do you want to save changes"
dialog. Hitting enter will save the changes. This has been the case for years
also. And properly so. Subjecting a customer to the loss of his work for a
typo would be a major user interface mistake. Microsoft isn't that bad,
really, honest! Have you tried the repair option I suggested?
Best Wishes,
IanRoy
 
J

Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]

As Mike said earlier in the thread, let's all chill out. This thread seems
to be generating more heat than light...

First of all, I agree that software should not magically make your work
disappear without asking you first. Unless, of course, you've configured
it to do so, which is something I often do because I really hate those "are
you really sure you want to quit" prompts. Are you sure you haven't
somehow turned off a warning?

Second, does anybody know what Ctrl-W is supposed to do? It does
absolutely nothing on my Outlook 2003 SP1 installation, and I don't see it
as an accelerator key for any of the menu options on a new message. Could
it be added by an add-in to Outlook?
 
J

Jeff Stephenson [MSFT]

As Mike said earlier in the thread, let's all chill out. This thread seems
to be generating more heat than light...

First of all, I agree that software should not magically make your work
disappear without asking you first. Unless, of course, you've configured
it to do so, which is something I often do because I really hate those "are
you really sure you want to quit" prompts. Are you sure you haven't
somehow turned off a warning?

Second, does anybody know what Ctrl-W is supposed to do? It does
absolutely nothing on my Outlook 2003 SP1 installation, and I don't see it
as an accelerator key for any of the menu options on a new message. Could
it be added by an add-in to Outlook?
Click to expand...

Answered my own question, to some extent - this appears to only happen if
you're using Word as your email editor, which wasn't the way my
installation was set up. You'll find the same thing happening if you open
Word and hit Ctrl-W. I'd search for some option/configuration within Word
that controls whether you get a prompt. If you can't find one, perhaps ask
in the Word newsgroup. Or you could go to Tools -> Options -> Mail Format
and turn off the use of Word as your email editor.
 
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