Word97/Win98 - Delete button - puter freezes - wallpaper gone

Hello List:

I have MS Word97/win98se, could anyone help with one or more of these, thank you: (Hope I posted these in the right place?)

(1) The delete button in the keyboard just won’t work in Word since quite a few weeks and it's getting annoying, I can only use the backspace button - which must be tapped several times!

(2) Lately I get frequent computer freezes, especially towards the end as I close the open windows in order to shut off the computer, so I’m forced to shut it off from the tower.

(3) My beautiful "Frogs" wallpaper is gone; it now shows a black screen and it takes a long time to return to the window when I hit "enter ". Only some times it returns all by itself. Twice I reset the display for wallpaper with no results.

Thanks again! Adela

 

Hello Adela,

As this has been sitting empty, with 0 responses, for a couple of days, taunting/torturing me.... For what it's worth, in all it's vagueness, here's my response:

This kind of generic problem [problem without a definitive "error message" to point to a root cause] can be hard to track down. At this point it can be so many things. It sounds like memory or resources are strained or drained. This can happen if you've been opening and closing applications with mem leaks, a possible swap file problem, background running apps such as those allowed to load at startup or those that load at will "either known or unknown ", etc. You may have bad or not have enough ram. On and on.......

All you can do is the standard house cleaning maintanance and cleanup routines, run the usual gambit of bulit in diagnostic and system tools, make sure you have adopted and applied the routine of looking for and keeping up with your hardware software updates and patches. Catch up on the tips for running win98 more effiently by reducing number of startup programs and running an aureate cleanup tool on occasion.

You may wish to Search the Archives of this board which are packed with many of the How-To's, links and tips for doing this. For that matter the main page of windows-help.net has many such tweaking tips.

Forgive me for not being more specific but I as well as other fellow members have supplied some of this infromation so many times, in past posts, the will, time or strength to do it again, ocassionally can't be found. As it is after 10:00 on a Sunday night, time and strength [energy] are ka-put. I'm just plain sleepy.

Good Luck.......

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Almost forgot, the wallpaper issue may be the best clue but I will have to get back to this. I have had my Name plastered up on the board so many times this weekend, others may sick of seeing it. Although I generally try to hold back and wait for those posts which have gotten looked into many times but left unresponded to for unknown or various reasons, sometimes these plus updated older posts seems to be wind up in a row......

 

Delete key / screen wallpaper

Hello Ann:

How wonderful of you to have answered me though, I'm sure, you must keep very busy helping us!

As in the recent past, you gave me very good insights of what things I must look into, and I will. The next few coming days though, I have some urgent personal problems, but I will follow your good advice immediatley after.

I do do all of the "house cleaning maintenance and cleanup rooutines" ever since I've been attacked twice by viruses...I learned my lesson. In fact, I thought these 2 problems would've been solved after I did all of these routine cleanings, etc. but...

I also went through the other people's problems to find a similar one to mine, but I might've done it the hard way. I just tried the link you gave me and it seems easier than the one I did.

Again, thanks so very much for everything! Adela

 

Delete key / wallpaper...

I went to the Archives through the link you so kindly gave me, Ann, but I saw only 2 items and they don't apply to my case. You did say there are very many posts in the Archives? I'm eager to resolve the problems of the "delete key" and the "wallpaper "...

I called Dell (who sold me the computer and which warranty I purchased is still good to this Nov.), but was told I must pay for software support. He made me test the delete key by pressing "Control+Alt+Del" and said the fault is with the software not with the hardware...

So sorry to bother you again, but I hope to find the way to the Archives and search for similar problems.

 

Sorry Adela,

I hope you haven't peeked in here before I edit my own post. I asked a stupid question about your vrersion of word before reviewing past threads of posts. I now see it is word 97.

I'll see what I can dig up for ya'........

===update=======
Haven't found a reference to a delete key problem, thus far. I will keep looking as time permits.

In the mean time, you said the backspace key works. This is or rather does serve the same function in a document. The only only difference is the cursor insertion point and that only matters when removing ONE letter at a time. The delete key deletes one letter at a time to the right and the backspace key deletes one letter to the left.

See cutNpaste below.....

You can delete text:

A letter at a time by pressing Backspace. This rubs out the letter to the left of the insertion bar. Or you can press Delete which rubs out the character to the right of the insertion bar. The Delete key eats up text to the right, Backspace to the left.

A word at a time. Double click the left mouse button on the word you want to delete and press Backspace or Del. Try it.

If you wish to replace the word simply double click and type the new word. The selected word is deleted automatically [NOTE*you may have to enable "Overtype Mode for this option to work, not sure on this one].

In chunks using the mouse. Move the mouse pointer to the beginning of the block of text you want to delete. Hold down the left mouse button and drag the mouse pointer across the section of text, this will highlight the text. Press Backspace or Del.

Alternatively you can click the left mouse button at the beginning of your selection, hold down the Shift key, and click the left mouse button at the end of the selection, press Backspace or Del.

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Does the above not hold true for you?
Have you had a look at your options/preferences?
I haven't used word 97 in a long time so I'm very rusty on what can be set, over ridden, or made to perform a function or act in a way that a previous version did.

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Does the delete key get fussy in other word processors as well, such as wordpad or, heck as far as that goes, even typing in this forum? The deletion key serves the same edit functions in all. [Just curious if this problem is restricted to or displayed in "word" exclusively]. Notice any other odd symptoms, in word?

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In any case, as I previously stated I will keep looking for reference to this and see what I can come up with.

 

I wonder if you could be suffering from a corrupted Normal.dot? This has been giving people fits lately. Try doing a file find for said same and renaming it. It will be rebuilt.

Do you include macros and templates in a virus scan? Have to ask cause some exclude these from routine scanning.

Word97 is infamous for it's bugs. Hence the patches that have been put out for them [even the patches can be tricky].

====F.Y.I.======
Snippet, quoted from link: http://www.personal-computer-tutor.com/chas10.htm
Normal.dot "“ Unless you have multiple versions of Word on your computer or have multiple users with different user profiles, there should be only one file named "normal.dot" on your computer. It will be stored in your User Templates Folder (see Figure 2 ). Unless you have stored them elsewhere, normal.dot will contain your macros, your AutoText entries, your formatted AutoCorrect entries, your keyboard customizations, your custom styles, any custom toolbars or menu customizations, and your standard page setup. I make a backup of normal.dot at least once a month in a folder outside my Templates folder. I try to keep most of my customizations in other global templates and in document templates.

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This is off-topic but I thought I'd pass this link on to you. It may prove useful latter on down the road....
Found an interesting site for kb articles pertaining to word97 that you may wish to bookmark for future use:
http://www.kbalertz.com/technology.aspx?tec=253&pNo=2