Replies

Many thanks for your reply. Here are the results of your various pointers.

Global Templates and Add Ins

Thanks. Winword /a did the business. Once loaded the new session of Word worked as it should. I can now select blocks all over the place. I can now use ALt+ mouse, Alt+ arrows and Ctrl+Shift+F8. I assume one or more of my customisations has altered the normal keyboard mapping. I will try and find the cause unless you have a likely suggestion.
Once again I appreciate your help in solving this small but interesting problem. It seems like a lot of other folks got something out of it too!
Cheers
Brian

Thanks for your suggestion. Ctrl + Shift + F8 definitely locks the cursor bar (i.e. it stops blinking) but using the mouse or arrow keys in every which way only gives the usual highlighted block and not the rectangle I wanted. I tried the other 4 PCs in the office and the Alt select works on them all. Something must have been changed on mine or some program is interfering. I will just have to try and track it down . Where to begin though?
Cheers Brian

Hi Bob_D
Neither ALT key works for this feature. I ran through and printed out all the possible key assignments in Word and other programs but I cannot find any that would be using the ALT key (plus mouse or direction arrow) exclusively. All the other ALT + features are working as far as I’ve tried so this is a bit of a mystery.
Cheers
Brian

Hi
It is indeed the Alt key. I meant the vertical block select (I also said Windows 2000 instead of Word 2000 – – oops). Its a wee gem when you want to select just a rectangle anywhere on the page and you can apply special formatting etc. However, mine doesn’t work and I’m trying to track it down. The help file for Word 2000 definitely says I should be able to do this.
Cheers
Brian

Sorry for the delayed response. Work demands prevented us from trying your suggestions. Today we re-installed Word 2000 over the 97 version. On trying the “Run winword.exe /a” fix it worked but it was only a one time solution and it apears you would have to start Word that way everytime. However, the registry fix was the answer and now everything works as it should. Many thanks for your input and advice. WLTL.
Cheers
Brian

Many thanks for your quick response.
We tried every possible key combination including escape to no avail – although the odd dialogue box appeared from time to time. Also tried your normal .dot solution but still no menus or toolbars. I will try the suggestion posted by BAM but I won’t be able to do anything for about a week as I will be out of the office.
Thanks again
Brian

Brilliant
I tried your suggestion and after a bit of fiddling (I have not used field codes very often) I got the template working as it should. It works and does just what I want. You have opened a new vista for me! Thanks.
Brian G

Thanks for your reply. Your suggestion certainly works but I need the name to be the same as the subject line I enter and so it will change every time I use the template.

I thought that if word normally grabs the first line there might be a routine which could be modified to grab another line (say line 10) on save as?
Brian

Thanks for your input.
Please see solution below in my reply to WyllyWylly
Thanks
Brian

Yes!
That was it. Absolutely brilliant! Followed the instructions and I can now boot first time and I have a CD-ROM too! Can’t thank you enough. I used to use the IBM support pages a lot in the early days but for one reason or another I had forgotten that they still hold a few aces up their sleeve.
Thanks again

Hi All
It’s been a few months since I first aired this enigma and its still with me. I still have to double (sometimes more because it hangs) boot and once started all is OK. The reason I write is that I received the infamous blue screen again (out of the blue!) and this time I wrote it down verbatim. Here it is in entirety:

Your multi-function device (Opti Opti 826612A or Viper-M/N+ Dual PCI IDE Controller) has some child devices using 32-bit drivers and others using compatibility mode drivers. This configuration is not supported, so your computer has been halted to prevent corruption.

After you restart your computer, Windows will use compatibility mode drivers for each child device attached to the multi-function device. If you want to use 32-bit drivers you may be able to obtain an updated driver for the device that caused the problem by contacting your hardware manufacturer, or you can disable the device.

Press any key to continue

You can see why I couldn’t recall it from memory! As previously stated, once this screen has gone the computer boots first time every time….the downside is that the CD rom is no longer available or is unrecognised. Device Manager reveals:- no CD ROM and a yellow exclamation appears beside primary and secondary hard disk controllers. If you drill deeper the panel tells me ‘this device is not installed , not working properly or has the wrong drivers loaded (code 10)’. Also WIndows is running in compatibility mode as confirmed from the Performance tag.
Does this give more of a clue as to what’s happening?
TIA
Cheers
Brian G

Sorry for the delay in reply. Please see my response to Mark below. I have tried your suggestions but it is still the same result. I have enclosed a bootlog.txt for perusal.
Regards

Hi Mark
Sorry, I’ve been away for a few days. You are right the problem is absolutely reproducable. This computer always lies dormant while I’m at work and then I usually use it in the evening. It doesn’t seem to matter though as I get the same result every time, although sometimes it just hangs completely and I can’t do a warm boot. On the next cold restart it goes through the same procedure. I noted that it hung after the last vxd file loaded msmouse.vxd. I unchecked it in the System.ini and then it hung at the vnetnios.vxd stage (the one immediately prior). I checked the bootlog.txt file and all the vxd files load except for the ndisc2..etc but that fails on just about everyone’s PC and it’s never been a problem before. I made sure that I was not loading real mode CD ROM drivers and I do not load the Config.sys or Autoexec.bat at the moment. It seems that all combinations give the same result. It is driving me crazy. .
If ever I change settings or load a prog that requires a restart I have to go through the same routine. Bootlog.txt enclosed
Regards
Brian

Many thanks for the tip about the normal.dot. As you suggested I changed the normal.dot to oldnormal.dot and started Word again. There was no difference and it still defaulted to Arabic. The next day I decided to check if Word had created a new normal.dot so I ran a Find from the start menu. To my surprise one came up in the C:WindowsApplication DataMicrosoftTemplates directory. I always thought that the normal.dot and other templates were stored in C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeTemplates folder. I had no idea that the global template might be stored anywhere else (even though it tells you in ToolsOptionsFile Locations, albeit in truncated form). Oops!
Anyway, I renamed the one I found to oldnormal and