Word 2002/2003 in Win 7 - Flashing/Repaginating screen

[ajharn]

Hi All,

I have two users who recently switched to Win 7. One is running Word 2002 and one is running Word 2003 in Win 7 (64 bit). Both are demonstrating the same issue. Other users on the same config are not having the issue.

When they open a large document, as soon as they start to scroll down or even simply click to move the cursor, the document starts flashing as if it is repaginating. Word CPU usage goes up to 25% and sits there. And the document just keeps flashing. We can replicate this behavior with multiple documents. Larger document with lots of tables and formfields cause the problem consistently. Smaller documents are less effected.

I have seen a good deal of information suggesting this is a printer driver issue and have tried several fixes in this error. Both users had only the default Win 7 printers installed (Fax and XPS Document Writer) when the problem started. I have tried the following things, each having no effect on the problem.

1) Installed an actual printer and driver.
2) Stopped the Printer Spooler service altogether (Document still demonstrates the problem with spooler stopped)
3) Opened Word in "Safe" mode. Problem still occurs, even in Safe mode"
4) Installed a "PDF" printer driver and set it to default.
5) Set Word to open in "Windows XP - Service Pack 3" compatibility mode.

Not sure what to try next here. Any advice appreciated.

Thanks,
AJ

 

[macropod]

Hi AJ,

That suggests the document may have some corruption. A simple fix that works in most cases is to insert a new paragraph break at the end of the document, copy everyhing except the new paragraph break and paste it into an new document. Then close the old document and save the new one over it.

Cheers
Paul Edstein
[MS MVP - Word]

 

[ajharn]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the reply. I did try working with different versions and freshly made versions of the document to no avail. I can now replicate this behavior on 3 Win7 machines running Word 2002. I also can verify that it does NOT happen on OTHER Win7 machines running Word 2002 in my group. Very strange.

I have posted a video demonstrating the behavior here: [URL unfurl="true"]http://youtu.be/tH7AjVdkV-I[/url]

You can see the screen flashing and you can see that Word pegs its CPU usage at 25%. It does this on all three machines, so Word seems to be working hard at something but to have some internal throttling that limits it to 25% CPU usage.

I have uninstalled an reinstalled Word, to no avail. Strange stuff. Any further thoughts appreciated.

Thanks,
AJ

 

[ajharn]

I also wanted to add, that this document is in protected mode because it uses an abundance of formfields, all organized and position by tables.

The user works on MANY documents of this nature, but it seems to be mostly the larger ones that have this problem. Smaller ones are generally fine.

 

[macropod]

It may be an issue that is specific to Word 2002 and your Win 7 installation (Word 2002 is one of those product I think MS wishes would go away - much less stable than either Word 2000 or Word 2003). Since you also have Word 2003, I don't understand why you wouldn't use only that.

Cheers
Paul Edstein
[MS MVP - Word]