The Singing Cyclist

I use Microsoft Word everyday. In my job, as likely in yours, it is a tool that I must use to get my work accomplished. I have a love-hate relationship with many of the tools that I use in my work - and Word is no different.

Today, I was having a very strange issue with Word and my mouse. I could open a document and I could use the mouse to manipulate the menus and toolbar icons - but I couldn't select any text or navigate the document without using the keyboard.

Now - I'm no stranger to the keyboard. I've been developing software since before the mouse and graphical user interfaces became popular and prevalent. I actually prefer keyboard shortcuts most of the time, however these days the mouse is expected and in many cases the default or preferred method of accomplishing a task. Such it is for selecting and navigating text in MS Word.

Anyway - It turns out that if you use Windows Vista, Word is running, and a MS Office automatic update gets installed (which restarts the computer), you run into a whole host of problems.

A few minutes on Google and I discovered the following Microsoft Knowledgebase article about this very issue. I found it helpful - perhaps you will as well:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940791/en-us