MS Word tries to connect to the Internet and hangs ???

[AIO]

Hi all,

Whenever I open MS Word, the dial-up dialog of my ADSL connection pops up, hence I assume that MS Word is trying to connect to the Internet. (I have Win98SE and Office XP Standard Edition, and the computer is in my office).

I click on Cancel, fearing it might be a Trojan or something calling back, and MS Word totally hangs and freezes. The menu items doesn't work, I can't type a thing on the document. Word completely ignores my keyboard and mouse clicks. I then have to Ctrl+Alt+Del and 'end' the Word process in order to get rid of it. This does not effect the entire Win98SE system, the other programs run fine, even MS Excel...

I made a quick research on the Internet before posting this, and the only thing I found is that MS Word could be appointed as the HTML editor in Internet Explorer's Options>Programs. But I'm sure I didn't change it to MS Word. I can't check it now as my computer is in
my office as I mentioned before. But this still wouldn't explain why MS Word would hang after I cancel the dial-up dialog, would it?

I hope someone could give me a hand on this one. How can I stop it? MS Word isn't supposed to reach the Internet, right? Could it be a Trojan well hidden in MS Word or normal.dot? However, I ran Security Task Manager, a third party program that lists all running processes, even hidden ones and I didn't see anything suspicious there.

Your input will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

 

[tf1]

Well, out of the box it should connect to the Internet - and it really does no harm. Open Word and press F1 to open the Help Task Pane. Then click on Online Contents Settings and check all three sections to make sure that all possible reasons for Internet access are cleared. (I'm not sure why this dialog doen't have tabs across the top of the dialog rather than selections in the left side panel - a clear inconsistency in the interface designed to confuse the user into missing some obvious settings!)

Word will also connect to the Internet to check that off line Help is up to date. MS are constantly refining the Help, mainly adding new 'how tos' and correcting errors.


Regards: tf1

 

[AIO]

Hi tf1, many thanks for your help. As soon as I get to my office on Monday, I'll take a look at those three sections. In the morning Word was working fine, then all of a sudden in the afternoon, this weird problem surfaced! I hadn't installed any new software or hardware in the meantime. I might have hit some keys on the keyboard accidently though, maybe that key combiantion triggered an 'option' in Word.

 

[AIO]

Hi tf1 again, you won't believe it, but I really can't find the 'Online Contents Settings' in the 'Help Window' of Word. (Word 2002 SP3 to be exact). Could you please let me know where it is?

 

[tf1]

Press F1 which will open the Help Task Pane. The bottom selection is See Also... Online Contents Settings...

This isn't in the Help menu but in the Help Task Pane.

Under the Help menu, you get access to this dialog through Customer Feedback Options...




Regards: tf1

 

[AIO]

Are you sure these settings exist in Word 2002?

I made a quick Google search on "Customer Feedback Options" and it seems these options exist in Word 2003, but not Word 2002.

My version is Word 2002.

 

[tf1]

Oh drat: I should learn to read! No, I'm talking about 2003. However, there are some similar settings for Word XP but I cannot remeber exactly where they are hidden. I'm not sure if the on line updating wasn't introduced into XP but disn't have user control over them the same as 2003.


Regards: tf1

 

[AIO]

Oh, OK. I looked hard but couldn't find a thing re online updating in Word XP.