Mac OS 8.5, Office 98 and Kensington MouseWorks: a conflict

Don Barron writes: "There is a real incompatibility between Kensington MouseWorks software and Office 98 applications, when running on Mac OS 8.5. If you create a new document and close the window, you are prompted to save changes by a dialogue box that contains no selection buttons. There is no way out of this situation other than a Force Quit (Command-Option-Escape) of the Office application."

Another reader confirms this, adding that it will also happen when saving changes to an existing document and in several other Word 98 operations. In all cases, disabling the MouseWorks 5.04 startup extension resolved the problem.

Fred Krughoff similarly reported this and found that he could avoid having to Force Quit by using keystroke shortcuts, which still work even though the dialog box buttons have vanished (pressing Escape should close the window; typing Return may or may not perform the normal default button action). Office 98 should let you type the first letter of any dialog box response as an alternative to clicking with the mouse. If needed, several third party utilities also allow you to define keyboard shortcuts for dialog boxes. (Thanks also, Rault Kehlor.)

Update: Lorca Hanns reports a similar conflict with the control panel Scrollability: "When you go to Page Setup in Office applications and choose Custom Footer you'll get a dialog allowing you to make choices but no way to exit the dialog; no OK or Cancel buttons. Using the Scrollability Control Panel to exclude the Office applications fixes the problem."