Microsoft Office 2007 Problem (Calling all Techs!)

[pctech]

I got an interesting problem with Microsoft Office 2007 that I need to find out if anyone else has seen.

I've been running Office 2003 for quite some time now and it does what I need it to do. One of these days I'm going to try using Linux but that's a ways off. My job at a military base is making it mandatory to use Office 2007. Why the military is pushing Vista and Office 2007 I'll never know because it causes all kinds of headaches with our XP programs.

I decided to get the Home Use Office 2007 for my home and install it. I have Windows XP on my home computer. When I did, I noticed that the minimize, restore up, and close buttons in the upper right hand corner of the screen didn't work. I could right click on the task bar or just through the menu to close it out, but I've always been able to use the "X" button to close out applications. Note: I never had this problem with Office 2003. This is a real pain in the arse.

I don't have this problem at work (I have a system with a dual monitor ATI card), and I have Office 2007 on my laptop and I don't have the problem there either.

Now, this is where it gets interesting. I got online and I couldn't find anyone else who had the problem. I decided to upgrade my video drivers (I have an NVidia 6200A dual monitor card). During the process of upgrading the driver I noticed that right after the loading and restart, when the computer was cloning the display (identical displays on each monitor), the buttons worked. But the moment I went to "dual display" the buttons stopped working.

This evidently has to be either a problem with NVidia drivers or a Microsoft incompatibility issue. I'm wanting to find out if anyone else has had this problem and if so is there a fix for it? I'm going to try and contact NVidia and ask them. I can't contact Microsoft because I'm not going to pay $99 to $250 for support.

Thanks.

[jdm]

tech. ping.

[Morgan in Denver]

If you bought the Vista Home product your call to Microsoft should not cost you, should it? I thought they did not charge for initial setup issues.

[Mr Rogers]

Doesn’t happen with my $20 Afghanistan copy of Microsoft Office 2007.

[SandRat]

Using Vista Home Premium and Office 2007 and all is sweet performaing; after I got used to using the damn tabs in the Office application instead of the simpler Office 2003 pulldouns.

[jdm]

Did you somehow get a beta version?

[ThomasThomas]

When I get a weird problem I usually end up doing a rebuild. I don’t have time to play around with problems like this. I’ll try a few thing ask other techs if they have seen something like it. Everyone where I work is given tools to backup data and is expected to use them.

[mad_as_he$$]

Run register cleaner.

[pctech]

Dunno if this counts as a Vista Home product.

[pctech]

You know there is an add-in that can be purchased to restore the original menus don’t you?

[pctech]

What good will that do?

[jdm]

You mean run a registry cleaner? Those can be hazardous to your OS if you’re not careful.

[octobersky]

I’ve never had a problem with them. I’ve used CCleaner, RegSupreme Pro and whatever else they have on the software giveaway of the day site. I let them remove whatever they find. Never had a problem yet, knock on wood.

[jdm]

I agree that CCleaner is excellent. I rarely use the registry feature of it, though. It seems to not be an aggressive registry cleaner, which is good. CCleaner is great at cleaning up junk files quickly but I’m not sure it would help with getting his buttons to work in Office 2007.

[mad_as_he$$]

There may be some debris left around that causes the problem. On all of my machines I run reg cleaner and CCleaner BEFORE any new installation of application(s) and AFTER. I have very few problems. You would like to think Mickeysoft had made sure an upgrade removed all trace(s) of the old application - but of course they do not always succeed.

[mad_as_he$$]

Do it all the time . Back up the Register file first and go for it. You will be surprised how much faster your machine runs and how few errors you get.

[gjones77]

I use to work for Microsoft doing support for Microsoft Office.

And I can tell you office depends on two things, the video driver and the printer driver.

So here’s a simple test since it really sounds like the video driver.

Go into your video adapter settings and set the driver to standard VGA, the screen is going to look hokey after a restart, but once you do open office and see if you get the same results, if not then it is the video driver and there’s nothing that can be done if nVidia hasn’t put out an update that resolves this issue.

That’s the best I can offer right now.

[Fractal Trader]

Office 2007 sucks. Our whole office downgraded to Office 2003 after getting upset at this crapware. Here are a couple of issues:

- Defaulting to double spaces in Word, and making it hard to change
- Hard to find simple things like the print icon
- Eliminating standard menu navigation: The options in the tabs don’t match the historic File, Edit, View options.

[pctech]

There was one thing I did find after reading it in the one article I found about this issue. They said to shut down and start up into Safe Mode. Since the graphics drivers are standard VGA, as you suggested I try, no NVidia drivers will load. The buttons worked perfectly there. For that reason I'm also leaning towards an NVidia problem.

Thanks for the suggestion.

[pctech]

You know there is an add-in that can be purchased to restore, or actually add-in, the classical menus. I purchased it and it works great on my laptop.

[jdm]

I’m finding that the more I google Office 2007 the more I’m learning that a lot of folks are uninstalling 2007 and reverting to 2003, just like you said.

[upchuck]

You know there is an add-in that can be purchased to restore the original menus don’t you?

More info? Link?

[Morgan in Denver]

I’d say call to get your answer. If they ask for money you can decline but I’d start out expecting them to back their product and help you get it installed correctly. I had issues with a new computer that came with Vista Home Premium and I added Office 2007. Microsoft helped me make sure it was set up and working properly, no charge.

[aimhigh]

Office 2007 sucks.

Yes, it sucks absolutely. It yields no new benefits - NONE. Power users will hate it, as some options and tasks are nearly impossible to find. The menu can't be modified to fit your personal preferences.

[pctech]

http://www.addintools.com/english/menuoffice/default.htm

When I went through the Microsoft website this is where it eventually led me.

[pctech]

I'm waiting to see if I get a response back from NVidia first. It seems to happen when I use the dual view function so I'll see if they've encountered others with the same problem.

If that doesn't pan out, then I'll call Gates.

[pctech]

All this leads me to want to try a Linux distro or even OpenOffice.

[Pearls Before Swine]

All this leads me to want to try a Linux distro or even OpenOffice.

Try it, you'll like it!

I run Linux at home and XP at work. The main deficits for Linux are: 1) games and 2) some (not all) Web multimedia formats are hard to set up. But otherwise, it is great -- responsive, and doesn't crash. There has been steady improvement in quality and ease of use over the past few years, whereas XP is at best static.

[KirbDog]

jdm said “All this leads me to want to try a Linux distro or even OpenOffice.”

Openoffice ROCKS we have been installing it on all new desktops. Have quite a number of Office 2000, XP, 2003 and a few 2007 installed also. Openoffice does pretty much everything Office does.

Kirby

[SandRat]

Yep. Figured I better get used to it though since my employer is migrating to it.

[willyd]

Open Office is very cool...I am in the process of setting up an old laptop on all linux to how things go...we might set our office up on it in the next few months.

[MomwithHope]

I bought Office 2007 to run on my new dell desktop which came with XP. I have had no problems, my first thought is you might want to uninstall and reinstall. The factory product allows for 3 installations. I also installed it on my daughter’s older desktop with XP and her laptop a vostro with XP, so that was 3 installations with no issues. Good luck.

[pctech]

Well as it turns out there is an issue with older NVidia cards. I started a thread on the NVidia forum website.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=60667&st=0&p=332815&

I don't know what the bug.Guru3D is but I'm going to do some more research.

[wireplay]

Yes, it sucks absolutely. It yields no new benefits - NONE

I have been using Office 2007 for a long time now and i absolutely love it. Much easier to use IMO and I am a power user.

Benefits: better graphics, better navigation, PDF support, automatically see changes before they are applied, and on and on.