How to Make Microsoft Word Stop Ignoring Mouse

Thursday, November 13th, 2008 at 10:38 AM | Category: Meryl's Notes Blog, Tech, Writing 22 comments

This quirky problem has happened often enough that it warrants a post of its own. The problem doesn’t happen on my desktop running Microsoft Windows XP with Office 2003. It occurs only on the laptop running Microsoft Vista with Office 2007.

I can’t tell you if it’s a Vista problem, an Office problem, or both. If your mouse works everywhere except Microsoft Word and possibly other Microsoft products, here’s an easy fix worth saving. After it happened twice, I figured I needed to save the fix information so I don’t chase it down every time.

It just happened again. I can’t use the mouse to highlight anything or move the cursor. Yet, I can still close Word and click menu items. When the problem happens, I closed Word and receive a pop up asking if I want to search for a solution or restart. Neither, but I restart it.

Tim Anderson’s ITWriting has the solution:

  1. Close Word and Outlook (ignore the pop up message by clicking X)
  2. Start / Run and type regedit
  3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data
  4. Rename this key (I call it “baddata”).
  5. Restart Word.

All is right with the Word again. For how long? Who knows.

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22 comments

  • Posted by David Hostyk on November 14th, 2008, 9:33 AM

    If you need to work without a mouse, or want to get rid of the mouse altogether, try Integrated Keyboarding at http://www.inkeyboard.com which allows you to move the mouse and the cursor, highlight, scroll, drag, number and delete from the home key position of the keyboard.
    Good Luck.

  • Posted by Computer Network Consulting on November 18th, 2008, 7:56 PM

    THANK YOU!!! I’ve had 2 different clients bring me machines like this and the best I could figure out is that you can beat it by disabling the PlugAndPlay service. Unfortunately that also disables EVERYTHING that uses USB. I am going to repost this with a link to you.

    Thank you!

    Computer Network Consulting’s last blog post… WiFi WPA Encryption has Officially Been Hacked

  • Posted by Meryl / @merylkevans on November 18th, 2008, 8:34 PM

    Glad to help. Sometimes it isn’t easy to find the answers on the internet with so many common keywords.

  • Posted by Myrthe on December 13th, 2008, 4:06 AM

    THANK YOU! This bug has been annoying me for ages and now it’s gone! Hurrah! This just made my day a whole lot more pleasant :)

  • Posted by Vista Mouse Can't Click - Fixed | Biden PC's IT Blog on December 29th, 2008, 9:40 AM

    [...] stopped the mouse from clicking. Well, I seem to have found the answer. Meryl’s post “How to Make Microsoft Word Stop Ignoring Mouse” seems to have the [...]

  • Posted by steve skaar on January 4th, 2009, 9:24 PM

    thanks! I couldn’t figure this out myself and previous searches online didn’t reveal the answer, so this has just hamstrung me and forced me to use other computers for months. It’s striking how mouse-centric the app has become.

  • Posted by par on February 21st, 2009, 9:14 PM

    excellent article for helping with an obscure problem, thanks!

  • Posted by Christina on March 13th, 2009, 1:39 PM

    THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I was going out of my mind. I had already repaired office, updated everything, reinstalled office, reinstalled the mouse drivers, etc before finding this post. Whew my mouse now works again.

  • Posted by Greg on April 13th, 2009, 10:56 AM

    Thank you. I tried re-installing Office and feared reinstalling Vista…

  • Posted by James on May 25th, 2009, 8:54 PM

    Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!!!

  • Posted by Meg on June 11th, 2009, 3:05 PM

    Thank you — worked for me too, after MUCH frustration!

    I installed Office 2007 Home Edition (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote) on my Vista machine six months ago and had no trouble with Word or my mouse until I separately purchased and installed Outlook earlier this week. I was about ready to uninstall Outlook and destroy the CD when I found your solution.

  • Posted by Chas on June 16th, 2009, 8:06 AM

    You, sir, are a genius…

    I found there were a couple keys that needed renaming, hopefully not to any bad effect, and so far so good!

    Needless to say you’ve saved me countless hours and a lot of money that would otherwise have gone straight into the swear jar

  • Posted by Carl E on June 22nd, 2009, 10:47 AM

    YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! It worked!!!!! I renamed the Settings key to BadData and everything worked again!!!!!

    Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!

  • Posted by Jeannie Scotlans on June 30th, 2009, 8:31 AM

    Thanks sooo much for this fix…this was a headache for two days!

  • Posted by Donna S on July 17th, 2009, 9:40 AM

    Many, many thanks! Just got an MS update yesterday that caused this [Vista] problem. Your post gave me a quick fix!

  • Posted by Mike R on July 26th, 2009, 8:25 PM

    Thanks a million your help has saved me hours of stress!!! Thanks

  • Posted by Addiction on August 14th, 2009, 6:44 PM

    Very Cool. Thanks very much. i would not have been able to ever dream up a solution like this and it totally worked. Thanks again.
    Addiction ’s blog …Losing Someone You Love? Get Help NOW My ComLuv Profile

  • Posted by JinKazama on August 26th, 2009, 3:11 PM

    I don’t have \12.0\Word\Data under Microsoft Hot Key :(

  • Posted by Rob on September 10th, 2009, 3:23 PM

    Just another of the many thanks. Glad I found this before removing and reinstalling software. It may be related to other USB issues I’m having when connecting and disconnecting my Windows Mobile phone.

  • Posted by Angel on September 13th, 2009, 10:57 AM

    THANK YOU! You’re the man!!

  • Posted by Neal on September 17th, 2009, 3:55 AM

    Thank you much!! Very helpful!!

  • Posted by Jon Austin / @jmaustin on March 9th, 2010, 11:41 AM

    I experienced this same problem on a machine running Win 7 64-bit and Office 2007. I just had Win7 installed on the machine a month ago and it worked fine until yesterday Word started refusing to close and then the mouse buttons quit functioning inside the Word editing window (they still worked in other office applications and in the menus of Word).

    This fix seems to have corrected both problems. Many, many thanks!

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