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Question

Wacky mouse pointer when using Word 2010

Sep 3, 2014 3:25PM PDT

Whenever I use Word (other apps and the desktop are fine) the mouse pointer constantly changes its appearance. This occurs so quickly that I can barely make out the different components. It seems to rotate/cycle between the standard thick white arrowhead, an I-shaped cursor with four small adjacent horizontal lines, and a blue circle. I first noticed this while using Word 2007 so I upgraded to Word 2010 but the problem persists. My OS is Win7 Professional.

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: mouse pointer
Sep 3, 2014 5:06PM PDT
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Answer
Most likely
Sep 3, 2014 11:54PM PDT

Most likely it's changing to the "busy" cursor when the auto-save function kicks in. I'll bet it happens roughly ever 10-15 minutes and if you quickly look at the bottom of the Word window you'll see a progress bar that disappears very quickly. If it's yes to all of the above, it's nothing to worry about, just ignore it. Or turn off the auto-save feature and take your chances if Word crashes or is open when the computer goes down.

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Re: auto-save
Sep 4, 2014 12:01AM PDT

Great idea. But I wonder if "constantly" means "every 10 minutes". But maybe the autosave frequency is set to 10 seconds in stead of 10 minutes. Would such a setting stay active when moving from Office 2007 to Office 2010?

Kees

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Wacky mouse pointer
Sep 4, 2014 12:11PM PDT

By "constantly" I mean every SECOND or even faster. I doubt this would relate to autosave. I started Word in safe mode and the problem persists.

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Answer
The other wacky cursor thing.
Sep 4, 2014 2:18AM PDT

There's another wacky cursor thing that irks users and it's what happens when you have a view of the document with that grey area left and right and move the cursor (arrowhead) into the grey area. It may vanish until you move it out of the grey.

This stuff is far from perfect or rather, many folk think there's work to be done.
Bob

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The other wacky Word problem. Printer?
Sep 4, 2014 12:23PM PDT

If you install Word on a Windows PC that has no printer drivers or no default printer selected, the mouse cursor will go wacky. Since about 1995 Microsoft has not considered this a bug.
Bob

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Default printer
Sep 4, 2014 2:23PM PDT

I read about this while researching my problem. I have a printer that is and has been selected as the default printer. Everything used to work fine until about a month ago. I don't remember adding new software or making any changes that would have caused this. It's probably just another computer glitch that no one will be able to solve.

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Try this.
Sep 4, 2014 3:19PM PDT

Use your other Admin account (by now you know why we keep a spare) and see if that account is broke or not.