Unresolvable Word 2007 Hang in Vista

C

CcQ

I am using Vista and the trial version of Word 2007. In the middle of editing
a document, Word will freeze and become "Not Responding." The program will
hang indefinitely until I restart it. I have run Office Diagnostics and found
no problems. I have also uninstalled the trial version and reinstalled it.
After that, I deleted the license file and it still does it. Now today I have
edited two documents and had no problems, but on my third it froze. It
doesn't hang while I am away from the computer, only while I am trying to
move my cursor to another spot on the document or highlight. Random things.

I am at my wits end. I need Word to work, but I am not going to purchase
Office 2007 if I am going to have these issues with Word. My error message
is, "Something has caused this program to stop communicating with Windows."
Duh.
 
J

jimmuh

Yeah, I love those helpful error messages, don't you?

Have you considered whether or not it might be the contents of these
documents which could be causing the problem? For instance, do they contain
information pasted from another source, or do they contain graphics? How
about links to other documents, or to network locations? Macros? Are you
using any plug-ins with your Office applications? Is your graphics driver up
to snuff? How about the mouse driver? (The most recent Intellimouse drivers /
software, and to a lesser extent the Intellitype drivers / software, have
been DISMAL. And have heard of some Logitech mouse drivers which were reputed
to be as bad.) I have seen issues from all of these categories cause previous
versions of Word to lock up, though I haven't seen any of it with Word 2007
-- yet. (The year is young.)

Oh, and you should tell us which OS you're running. If it's Vista it's all
the more important to be sure about those video / mouse / keyboard drivers.
Not to mention being sure that your other software is running okay on the OS,
too.
 
C

CcQ

The documents I've been using have been text only. Pretty basic.

I just got this laptop a few weeks ago, (came preloaded with Vista) so I was
hoping that all of the drivers were up to date. I've been using the touchpad,
but I'll go through and check that sort of thing.

It is Vista. One thing that interested me is this laptop only came with 512
MB RAM. I'm ordering some more so I can get to the recommended 1 GB to run
Vista, but I wondered if running both of those products on 512 MB RAM would
cause just Word to freeze. Nothing else does it, but I only really use Word
and IE7. I have a small transcription program that I use to listen to medical
reports, but it's never had any problems.
 
J

jimmuh

Well, we'll hope that the OEM of that notebook computer was on the ball and
made sure that the drivers were okay, but I'm sure that hardware vendors will
be playing catchup for a while on this OS.

Yeah 512 MB is pretty slim for Vista, but I am using Vista Business on a
tiny Panasonic subnotebook (an R-3) which has 768 MB total memory and shares
64 of it for integrated graphics. It also has one of the slower Centrino
processors (though none of them are slouches). With those limited specs it is
amazingly responsive. I never see the type of issue you're reporting. That
makes me think that there's something else happening on your system.

Tell me, were you running that transcription program when these Word lockups
occurred? Because that program or a malfunctioning anti-virus or anti-spyware
application could also be good things to look at. You could crank up the task
manager and set it so that it's displaying the processes tab. (You might want
to set it to show processes for all users.) Then test the system to see if
one of the processes is pegging the CPU when these lockups happen. The
process that uses lots and lots of CPU cycles at that point is probably your
culprit.

Or, as mentioned before, it could be a driver issue. And it can be DIFFICULT
to get updates for drivers on notebooks. Most notebook manufacturers seem to
take their danged time about updating drivers. When there's a lot of fussing
from their customers it can help get them moving. You might want to check on
the manufacturer's support forums, if they have such, to see if others with
your model of notebook are making the same complaint.
 
C

CcQ

The last time that Word froze up I checked my Task Manager and Word was using
90%+ of my CPU. I read another solution somewhere that said Word will
occasionally use a lot of CPU but will give other programs priority. I don't
really know if that applies here, but I thought it was quite odd that it was
still using so much CPU yet be "not responding."

I was not using the transcription program (Express Scribe) the first times
(2 days of repetitive crashing) that I dealt with this problem. The first
time it was a 80 page document, this most recent time was with a 1/2 page. So
that threw off my "large file" theory.
 
J

jimmuh

Curiouser and curiouser.

At this point I'm pretty much mystified. I'm not sure whether or not a
driver issue could cause findings like this. Normally not, I think. It will
be interesting to see what effect, if any, the memory boost has on this
behavior.

You have no errors in Event Viewer, right?
 
C

CcQ

I've got a few (18 or so) "Warning"s, in Word, but they all say, "This
session ended with a hang." or "This session was terminated unexpectantly."
Is there something else I should look for?

I did something where it sent my errors to Microsoft to look for solutions
and it didn't show any.
 
J

jimmuh

Oy! I'm afraid I'm fresh out of functioning brain cells. It has been a
bizarre day at work. I'm going to keep you in mind, but I really can't think
of any place else to go with this -- other than to keep working on the
suggestions already made. Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about
trying new drivers if they don't even exist. If the Word errors are the only
errors you've seen, and no other applications or devices have given you error
messages, and you see nothing in the Event Viewer, I'm pretty much lost for
now.

This just could be one of those problems which can be fixed only by winging
the offending system against a wall -- HARD!

;-)

Seriously, when I see strange stuff like this it sets me to wondering about
hardware. But faulty hardware (or drivers) should be making other
applications fail -- not just Word. I wonder if there's some arcane setting
in Word that can do this to you.

If this had been an upgrade installation of Vista, or even if it were a
clean installation but done on a system not made for Vista, I would be less
surprised at this behavior. I wonder if the fact that this is a trial version
of Office might have something to do with your troubles. You haven't
installed any non-trial or beta versions of Office software on that system,
have you? Did it come loaded with the trial version, or is the trial version
one which you obtained and put on the system?
 
C

CcQ

I hope this makes your day a little better. Here is the best solution I have
come up with yet: (I found it in some older complaints of earlier versions of
Office/Word)
Auto-SpellCheck.

When I uncheck the "correct spelling as you type" and "correct grammar as
you type" options, the program does not crash. (So far) I believe I will be
able to check spelling on the document as a whole when I'm done.

This sucks, because this function was a major help to me in editing and
medical transcription. I'm not sure if this is something that is on
Microsoft's end to fix, or if my increase in memory will help. I'm sure the
latter will happen first.

Here's the kicker: I can't remember if Word started crashing before or after
I installed Dorland's Medical Dictionary Electronic Speller thingy. It adds
difficult medical terminology to Word's dictionary. This is a new fix for the
company that distributes the speller, because it was not previously
compatible with Word 2007. So, that adds a third party into the mix, if this
is something they need to fix.

Lord. I don't know if these added words are screwing up Word, or not. But I
will let you know if it crashes again. *cross fingers*
 
J

jimmuh

I'm betting on the medical terminology add-on. You always have to watch out
for add-ons. I should have thought of that and mentioned it. As a matter of
fact, the first thing I normally do when I see a misbehaving Office
application is to look for a plug-in / add-on to blame. I would be interested
to see if you would be able to re-enable the autocorrection feature with the
Dorland software removed from the system.
 
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