Microsoft Word 2007 Problem is can not select text

I run Word 2007 on Vista. Today I hit a curious problem. Word opened, but something was badly wrong. I could not select text with the mouse. The document scroll bar did not work. Word crashed on exit. And going into Options - Addins, I could not navigate beyond the Popular section.

After several crashes an Office Diagnostics wizard popped up and offered to help. Kind of it. It chugged through numerous tests and finally told me it could not see anything wrong. Never mind.

Checking the newgroups, I found fellow-sufferers but no solution. I decided to be methodical. I started Word in safe mode. (winword /a). It worked. Probably an add-in. I went to the COM add-ins and tried to disable them. Message: The connected state of Office add-ins registered in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE cannot be changed. OK, registry then. Navigated to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Word\Addins

Found three add-ins listed. I changed the value of the LoadBehavior key from 3 to 0 for each add-in.

Word now worked OK, but still crashed on closing. I found I could restore two of the add-ins without problems. The guilty party: OfficePrintAddIn, a component of Flash Paper.

I had a look at active templates. There was one called FlashPaperWordUITemplate.2302.dot. If I tried to unload it, Word crashed. Perhaps it needs the related COM add-in to be loaded. I closed Word, found the template file, and deleted it. Everything is fine now.

A quicker route might be to uninstall Macromedia Flash Paper, unless you use this of course.

I m still puzzled about why this problem only showed up today. I d not made any changes to Flash Paper or Word that I m aware of. And I don t blame Macromedia (now Adobe) for this; Word 2007 did not exist when this Flash add-in was released.

Answers

I was in the office beta program. In beta1 there was an issue when I started up word it was always zooming to 15%. Pretty annoying. Now I had both mouse and crash issues with word. Reinstall did not help. I also found that mouse and select problems were caused by plugins. Not the one mentioned here. Crash was still there, not being able to get rid off it.
I found this trick in my emails with the beta team.

It helped me:

1. Close Word and Outlook
2. Start / Run and type regedit
3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data
4. Rename this key.
5. Restart Word

Microsoft Word is Microsoft's flagship word processing software. It was first released in 1983 under the name Multi-Tool Word for Xenix systems.[1] Versions were later written for several other platforms including IBM PCs running DOS (1983), the Apple Macintosh (1984), SCO UNIX, OS/2 and Microsoft Windows (1989). It is a component of the Microsoft Office system; however, it is also sold as a standalone product and included in Microsoft Works Suite. Beginning with the 2003 version, the branding was revised to emphasize Word's identity as a component within the Office suite; Microsoft began calling it Microsoft Office Word instead of merely Microsoft Word. The latest release is Word 2007.

Word 97

Word 97 iconWord 97 had the same general operating performance as later versions such as Word 2000. This was the first copy of Word featuring the "Office Assistant", which was an animated helper used in all Office programs. This was a take over from the earlier launched concept in Microsoft Bob.

Word 98
Word 98 for the Macintosh gained many features of Word 97, and was bundled with the Macintosh Office 98 package. Document compatibility reached parity with Office 97 and Word on the Mac became a viable business alternative to its Windows counterpart. Unfortunately, Word on the Mac in this and later releases also became vulnerable to future Macro viruses that could compromise Word (and Excel) documents, leading to the only situation where viruses could be cross-platform.

Word 2000
For most users, one of the most obvious changes introduced with Word 2000 (and the rest of the Office 2000 suite) was a clipboard that could hold multiple objects at once. Another noticeable change was that the Office Assistant, whose frequent unsolicited appearance in Word 97 had annoyed many users, was changed to be less intrusive.

Word 2001

Word 2002Word 2001 was bundled with the Macintosh Office for that platform, acquiring most, if not all, of the feature set of Word 2000. Released in October 2000. Word 2001 was also sold individually apart from the Office suite.

Word 2002
This short section requires expansion.

Word 2002 was bundled with Office XP and was released in 2001. Although its appearance was different, it had many of the same features as Word 2003. One of the key advertising strategies for the software was the removal of the Office Assistant in favor of a new help system, although it was simply disabled by default.

Word 2003

Office Word 2003 running on Windows XP.For the 2003 version, the Office programs, including Word, were rebranded to emphasize the unity of the Office suite, so that Microsoft Word officially became Microsoft Office Word. Users continue to use both names.

Word 2004
A new Macintosh version of Office was released in May 2004. Substantial cleanup of the various applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint) and feature creep (on par with Office 2003) created a very Mac-like Word release.[clarify] Microsoft released patches through the years to eliminate most known Macro vulnerabilities from this version. While Apple released Pages and the open source community created NeoOffice, Word remains the most widely used word processor on the Macintosh.

Word 2007
See also: Microsoft Office 2007
Word 2007 is the most recent version of Word for Windows. This release includes numerous changes, including a new XML-based file format, a redesigned interface, an integrated equation editor, bibliographic management. Additionally, an XML data bag was introduced, accessible via the object model and file format, called Custom XML - this can be used in conjunction with a new feature called Content Controls implement structured documents. It also has contextual tabs, which are functionality specific only to the object with focus, and many other features like Live Preview (which enables you to view the document without making any permanent changes), Mini Toolbar, Super-tooltips, Quick Access toolbar, SmartArt, etc.

Word 2007 formatting breaks the ability for users to send files to earlier versioned Word users on the Macintosh or Windows (version 2004 on the Mac, 2003 on Windows). Some third-party converters have become available to assist with this, but for most, simply saving Word 2007 files with the 'Save As' command and selecting Word 2003 format creates a compatible file. Office 2008 for the Mac will acquire (restore) the cross-platform capability with the .docx format, but older version users on either platform will remain at a disadvantage.

Word 2008
Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac
Word 2008 is the most recent version of Microsoft Word for the Mac, released on January 15, 2008. It includes some new features from Word 2007, such as a ribbon-like feature that can be used to select page layouts and insert custom diagrams and images. Word 2008 also features native support for the new Office Open XML format.