Word 97 hangs periodically when typing quickly in new XP Pro compu

[Newsgroup Reader]

I just changed over to a new computer equipped with Win XP SP2, and seem to
have a new problem with Word 97.

If I type quickly in Word 97, the program sometimes seems to hang. I don't
have this problem when typing quickly in any other application.

It usually happens right after opening Word and starting to type in a new
document. If I start it up and type, say, "The quick brown fox jumped over
the lazy dogs," I'll get as far as, perhaps, "The quick brown fox ju" ...
and then the mouse pointer disappears, and the program stops accepting new
characters.

For perhaps ten seconds, the computer is unresponsive. I try to move in
and out of other programs, but either can't, or the computer takes a long
time to do so.

I have all updates on SP2. I'm using a Microsoft Digital Media Pro keyboard
and Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer 3.0.

Can anyone offer a solution? It might be time to upgrade to a newer version
of Word, but Word 97 serves me well in all other respects.

 

[Terry Farrell]

Have you installed all the servicepacks and updates for both Word 97 and
Windows XP? Is your printer driver completely up to date? If these are all
fine, try testing in Safe Mode. From Start, Run, type in

winword /a

and press enter. Are you able to type without the pauses now?

 

[Newsgroup Reader]

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Yes, it had the XP2
servicepacks/updates ... but I hadn't even known that these existed for Word
97! A bit of googling showed -- yes, they do. There are two I haven't
installed.

Call me a chicken, but after thinking about it I decided not to go for it.
The service packs say that they can't be uninstalled, and I'm leery of
installing service packs from the Win 2000 era into my XP SP2 machine. Might
be no cause of concern at all, but I balked.

I bought Star Office instead -- $35 -- installed the writer component and
think that will serve fine.

Thanks, though, once again for offering advice on this one. You were the
only one who responded.