Help! No keyboard input in Office2002

[Mike]

My mother-in-law asked me to help her resolve a problem she was having
with Outlook2002. As it turns out the entire office suite is messed
up. It's as though the keyboard is dead. The function keys still work,
but that's all. She called the dealer, and he told her it was a virus.
I ran two seperate virus checkers, and it appears to be clean.
Wordpad, notepad, and Outlook Express still work fine. There are lots
of grandchildren that mess with her pc, and she doesn't want to pay
the dealer to fix it, if it's something simple. Any Ideas? Thanks

 

[Don MI]

My mother-in-law asked me to help her resolve a problem she was having
with Outlook2002. As it turns out the entire office suite is messed
up. It's as though the keyboard is dead. The function keys still work,
but that's all. She called the dealer, and he told her it was a virus.
I ran two seperate virus checkers, and it appears to be clean.
Wordpad, notepad, and Outlook Express still work fine. There are lots
of grandchildren that mess with her pc, and she doesn't want to pay
the dealer to fix it, if it's something simple. Any Ideas? Thanks

Verify that she has activated Office XP.
If you can open any Office XP application, try Help, Detect and Repair. If
not, go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs and select Microsoft Office.
Click on Remove {or Change/Remove}. Select Repair from the option list.
Or, insert the Office XP CD and select Repair from the options list. All
three of these actions do the same repair process.

Don

 

[Rob Schneider]

If it's just Office (and you suggest that with the info provided), then
indeed it is probably a virus or something. Something, based on the
symptoms, is in the computer is saying "if this an Office application,
kill keyboard" -- presumably so that the user gets angry and blames
Microsoft. Can you think of anything else that would get in the way of
just Office programs? Has their been any recent changes? Downloads?
Peer-to-peer file sharing?

Just because it can't be detected, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Ensure
you are using the latest virus data files, and also check for spy bot
programs.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms

 

[Chris Schatte]

Mike
As previously stated, it could be a virus or trojan
Try this for a possible solution
http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.hostidel.trojan.c.htm
It was originally posted 3/2/04

 

[Mike Gadbois]

Thanks for the replies. I ran the Symantec anti virus after doing an online
update, and it didn't find anything. I also downloaded the latest AVG free
scanner, and again it was clean. The latest Ad-aware, and Spybot S&D came up
with the usual tracking cookies, but nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently
the problem started after the installation of Norton Anti virus. I tried to
do a system restore to the previous restore point, but it couldn't complete
the restore. I also tried to do a detect and repair from within word. The
operation completed succesfully, but it didn't help the problem. I guess the
next step is to uninstall Office and put it back in. Thanks for the help.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Please report back after the re-install (I'm sure you know this, but
I'll suggest you turn off Norton when doing the Office Install).

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms

 

[Surfin Stan]

I'm having a similar problem... but it is only related to sites with forms on them... If I mouse click the form field... I can't type into the field. If I use "Tab" to get to the form field... I CAN type into the form?
I searched for "keyboard" and saw this post... figured I'd add to it
btw... on the "reply" to the forum... I CAN mouse click the field and type.. but on the forum itself (such as the search form) I can NOT mouse click the field and type.
man... I really love technology

 

[Rob Schneider]

Your problem is with Internet Explorer, or some other browser?

Have you checked for viruses and/or spy-bot programs which interfere
with the browser?

Using Mozilla browser may isolate you from these nefarious programs.
It's free at www.mozilla.org.

Hope this is useful to you. Let us know.

rms

 

[Chris Schatte]

As with any program or application, you still have to learn how to use/manage it correctly
Comaptibility/nefarious programs. Take your pick with support in mind
Rob's suggestion is possibly correct, browser issue
May help to post there