I’m having issues with Word and/or my mouse at work - when I highlight parts of a document or even just a word I can’t then press Delete to delete it - I have to either back space or overtype, I can’t use right click to highlight for cut and paste, unless I press left click first, i can’t drag and drop emails from outlook inbox into my folders - it’s like someone’s set up or changed an option without me knowing about it. I’m an old school Word user and don’t really use short cuts - I prefer using drop downs from my ribbon rather than keystroke combinations. I changed the mouse amd keyboard batteries and even got a new mouse but made no difference - it’s frustrating and it’s slowing me down - any ideas?

sarahb5 - 2021-07-03 15:10:00

Some one might be 'playing a joke' on you. If this is happening in Word, Outlook and other things and you've changed the mouse it's time to look elsewhere. Try controlpanel/mouse for mouse functions.

nice_lady - 2021-07-03 15:14:00

nice_lady wrote:

Some one might be 'playing a joke' on you. If this is happening in Word, Outlook and other things and you've changed the mouse it's time to look elsewhere. Try controlpanel/mouse for mouse functions.

I have looked at all those options as well - nothing seems to have been changed

Edited by sarahb5 at 3:31 pm, Sat 3 Jul

sarahb5 - 2021-07-03 15:31:00

could also be accessibility / ease of access functions, could try making sure they're all turned off.
But if you haven't already try restarting the PC just in case

king1 - 2021-07-03 15:49:00

king1 wrote:

could also be accessibility / ease of access functions, could try making sure they're all turned off.
But if you haven't already try restarting the PC just in case

Yes I do restart every day

sarahb5 - 2021-07-03 16:17:00

Ask your work IT people.

lythande1 - 2021-07-04 08:38:00

lythande1 wrote:

Ask your work IT people.

I have but they’re not Word users

sarahb5 - 2021-07-04 09:32:00

If, as you've said, this is happening in Outlook also then it's nothing to do with Word.

You work techs sound useless. Did they even bother to take a look ?

Ps: is this a laptop or desktop?

Edited by nice_lady at 9:40 am, Sun 4 Jul

nice_lady - 2021-07-04 09:38:00

Tried this?
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/delet
e-key-not-working-in-word/fc239c0d-ec5d-4000-8ef2-11b470b82e
35

bitsnpieces2020 - 2021-07-04 10:14:00

Also I note OP says " can’t use right click to highlight for cut and paste, unless I press left click first".....errr that's how it's supposed to work.

LEFT click and drag to highlight then RIGHT click to get the cut/copy/paste/delete etc menu.

nice_lady - 2021-07-04 11:16:00

If you run WordPad, or even Notepad, do you get the same issues? The functions you describe should work in those programs just the same. That would help isolate whether the issue is specific to just Word, or 'computer-wide' and may cut down the troubleshooting (and guesswork) quite a bit

cookee_nz - 2021-07-04 12:14:00

sarahb5 wrote:

Yes I do restart every day

Just to be certain, you do a FULL shutdown each day? So out of curiosity, when was the last time you restarted and had a bunch of Windows updates installed during the startup?

Edited by cookee_nz at 12:18 pm, Sun 4 Jul

cookee_nz - 2021-07-04 12:17:00

cookee_nz wrote:

If you run WordPad, or even Notepad, do you get the same issues? The functions you describe should work in those programs just the same. That would help isolate whether the issue is specific to just Word, or 'computer-wide' and may cut down the troubleshooting (and guesswork) quite a bit

It's not just related to Word. The OP said "i can’t drag and drop emails from outlook inbox into my folders". Which tends too suggest a deeper issue.

nice_lady - 2021-07-04 12:29:00

nice_lady wrote:

Also I note OP says " can’t use right click to highlight for cut and paste, unless I press left click first".....errr that's how it's supposed to work.

LEFT click and drag to highlight then RIGHT click to get the cut/copy/paste/delete etc menu.

If I highlight a paragraph using left click I can’t use the right click to delete without pressing left click first - that’s not how it should work

sarahb5 - 2021-07-04 12:38:00

cookee_nz wrote:

If you run WordPad, or even Notepad, do you get the same issues? The functions you describe should work in those programs just the same. That would help isolate whether the issue is specific to just Word, or 'computer-wide' and may cut down the troubleshooting (and guesswork) quite a bit

I don’t ever use word pad or note pad at work - updates happen automatically overnight via the server

sarahb5 - 2021-07-04 12:40:00

Please read post #8

nice_lady - 2021-07-04 13:36:00

Of course perhaps you don't 'normally' use Wordpad or Notepad, the suggestion was to at least try it, just for comparison. But as nl noted though (and I missed), apparently this happens in emails also. One of the other questions you didn't answer was whether it was a Desktop or Laptop? - if it's a Laptop, it's 'possible' something like the built-in touch-pad is faulty, perhaps a sticking button and is interfering with normal operation. If not a laptop, then it's going to need a fresh pair of eyes to do some other tests.
My question about updates was very specific, when you turn it on in the morning, when was the last time you saw it doing updates? They can't 'happen overnight" if it's turned off, so I'm wondering when this actually happens. Many a weird problem has been resolved by a full shutdown and rebooot, Anyway, too hard, tried to help, next....

Edited by cookee_nz at 2:45 pm, Sun 4 Jul

cookee_nz - 2021-07-04 14:38:00

sarahb5 wrote:

I have but they’re not Word users

Irrelevant answer. If the issue is not just happening in Word, but other apps, (hence my other suggestion) then your I.T. support are the right people to talk to because it's clearly NOT specifically a problem with Word.

cookee_nz - 2021-07-04 14:49:00

I'd guess they leave it running overnight

nice_lady - 2021-07-04 14:49:00

Exactly re word, and the touch pad.

nice_lady - 2021-07-04 14:52:00

cookee_nz wrote:

Of course perhaps you don't 'normally' use Wordpad or Notepad, the suggestion was to at least try it, just for comparison. But as nl noted though (and I missed), apparently this happens in emails also. One of the other questions you didn't answer was whether it was a Desktop or Laptop? - if it's a Laptop, it's 'possible' something like the built-in touch-pad is faulty, perhaps a sticking button and is interfering with normal operation. If not a laptop, then it's going to need a fresh pair of eyes to do some other tests.
My question about updates was very specific, when you turn it on in the morning, when was the last time you saw it doing updates? They can't 'happen overnight" if it's turned off, so I'm wondering when this actually happens. Many a weird problem has been resolved by a full shutdown and rebooot, Anyway, too hard, tried to help, next....

It’s a desktop at work - I don’t fully shutdown because updates are set up via the main server to be installed overnight. However a colleague was doing my work while I was away and turns it off completely every night so it was fully shutdown and turned back on overnight last Thursday and still the same issues on Friday so in the morning i would usually log in and restart rathe4 than turn on at the hard drive. Ive only seen it actively doing updates when the server crashed and we had to manually update - that was a few months ago.

I wouldn’t know where to find either Word Pad or Note Pad but I will try all these suggestions tomorrow. It just seems strange that it would have suddenly started not doing things I’ve always been able to do when no-one else in the office is having these issues which is what makes me wonder if, in my absence, a random short cut or option I don’t usually use has been selected. My cursor also no longer flashes so I can see where it is in a document.

Edited by sarahb5 at 3:18 pm, Sun 4 Jul

sarahb5 - 2021-07-04 15:17:00

Re-instal the mouse driver.

hulloitsme - 2021-07-04 23:27:00

Is your colleague a left hander?

Serious question.

Edited by nice_lady at 5:48 am, Mon 5 Jul

nice_lady - 2021-07-05 05:48:00

hulloitsme wrote:

Re-instal the mouse driver.

Done that

sarahb5 - 2021-07-05 07:15:00

nice_lady wrote:

Is your colleague a left hander?

Serious question.

No - already tried that

sarahb5 - 2021-07-05 07:15:00

Tried a different mouse? Sounds like it has issues?

*You can find most things on a PC by clicking on the magnifying glass in the bottom bar on the desktop screen, and typing what you want to look for.

zirconium - 2021-07-05 07:47:00

zirconium wrote:

Tried a different mouse? Sounds like it has issues?

*You can find most things on a PC by clicking on the magnifying glass in the bottom bar on the desktop screen, and typing what you want to look for.

See my original post

sarahb5 - 2021-07-05 13:41:00

Strange but true - I’ve relocated within the office and everything is now working as it was/should’ve been

sarahb5 - 2021-07-06 14:03:00

sarahb5 wrote:

Strange but true - I’ve relocated within the office and everything is now working as it was/should’ve been

Probably everything just needed shutting down, and reconnecting. Out of interest, are your Keyboard and/or mouse cordless? I recall a site that had purchased a bunch of cordless ones, and we found that units in close proximity could interfere with each other, giving some very random results.
That was many years ago and technology is vastly improved now that such an occurrence would be highly unlikely.

cookee_nz - 2021-07-06 14:27:00

these days unfortunately a shutdown is not really a proper shutdown like it used to be, that would clear a bunch of odd problems. You really need to do the *restart* option and/or unplug it and move it across the office...

the Fast Startup feature is the reason for this behaviour if you want to Google it

Edited by king1 at 2:34 pm, Tue 6 Jul

king1 - 2021-07-06 14:32:00

Or rather the "fast startup" process is the reason for a lack of the change in behavior one could normally reasonably expect from a "real" shutdown/restart - it's more like a hibernate shut off/start.

nice_lady - 2021-07-06 14:42:00

from what I can gather it's only the shutdown process that is affected by fast startup - restart is always a proper restart...

king1 - 2021-07-06 14:55:00

king1 wrote:

from what I can gather it's only the shutdown process that is affected by fast startup - restart is always a proper restart...

Which is to some extent why updates need a proper restart.

Edited by nice_lady at 3:47 pm, Tue 6 Jul

nice_lady - 2021-07-06 15:46:00

king1 wrote:

from what I can gather it's only the shutdown process that is affected by fast startup - restart is always a proper restart...

I don’t know what fast startup is - I log out and restart every night then log back in the next morning.

As for cordless mouse/keyboard being the problem, it’s the same cordless keyboard I’ve had for 18 months and new mouse after the issues started. I hadn’t experienced any of the issues prior to this.

sarahb5 - 2021-07-06 16:28:00

sarahb5 wrote:

I don’t know what fast startup is - I log out and restart every night then log back in the next morning.

Like i said you can google it if you're particularly interested - it's odd to be logging off and then restarting each night, is that company policy or something? Most would just turn the machine off, or just leave it logged out...

Edited by king1 at 5:09 pm, Tue 6 Jul

king1 - 2021-07-06 17:08:00

king1 wrote:

Like i said you can google it if you're particularly interested - it's odd to be logging off and then restarting each night, is that company policy or something? Most would just turn the machine off, or just leave it logged out...

Company policy

sarahb5 - 2021-07-06 17:29:00

What version of word are you using, and what operating system?

Can you run msinfo32 by pressing win+r, and entering msinfo32 then pressing enter? At the top of the general page you should see OS Name and Version - hopefully this is Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or 10. The version should be something like "10.0.22000 Build 22000" or "10.0.19042 Build 19042" for 20H2...

In word, depending on the version you should be able to go to file (which will open the 365 navigation pane in modern word versions) then down to Account, and over on the right hand side it should have a section labelled "Product Information" with a little button labelled "About Word" - press that and let us know the version string it yields above your License and Session ID's.

Edited by mattperrin at 5:39 pm, Tue 6 Jul

mattperrin - 2021-07-06 17:38:00

mattperrin wrote:

What version of word are you using, and what operating system?

Can you run msinfo32 by pressing win+r, and entering msinfo32 then pressing enter? At the top of the general page you should see OS Name and Version - hopefully this is Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or 10. The version should be something like "10.0.22000 Build 22000" or "10.0.19042 Build 19042" for 20H2...

In word, depending on the version you should be able to go to file (which will open the 365 navigation pane in modern word versions) then down to Account, and over on the right hand side it should have a section labelled "Product Information" with a little button labelled "About Word" - press that and let us know the version string it yields above your License and Session ID's.

See post #28 - working as it should now

sarahb5 - 2021-07-06 17:41:00