How to Make Microsoft Word Stop Ignoring Mouse

This quirky problem has happened often enough that it warrants a post of its own. The problem doesn’t happen on my desktop running Microsoft Windows XP with Office 2003. It occurs only on the laptop running Microsoft Vista with Office 2007.

I can’t tell you if it’s a Vista problem, an Office problem, or both. If your mouse works everywhere except Microsoft Word and possibly other Microsoft products, here’s an easy fix worth saving. After it happened twice, I figured I needed to save the fix information so I don’t chase it down every time.

It just happened again. I can’t use the mouse to highlight anything or move the cursor. Yet, I can still close Word and click menu items. When the problem happens, I closed Word and receive a pop up asking if I want to search for a solution or restart. Neither, but I restart it.

Tim Anderson’s ITWriting has the solution:

  1. Close Word and Outlook (ignore the pop-up message by clicking X)
  2. Start / Run and type regedit
  3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data
  4. Rename this key (I call it “baddata”).
  5. Restart Word.

All is right with the Word again. For how long? Who knows.

55 thoughts on “How to Make Microsoft Word Stop Ignoring Mouse”

  1. THANK YOU! This bug has been annoying me for ages and now it’s gone! Hurrah! This just made my day a whole lot more pleasant 🙂

  2. thanks! I couldn’t figure this out myself and previous searches online didn’t reveal the answer, so this has just hamstrung me and forced me to use other computers for months. It’s striking how mouse-centric the app has become.

  3. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I was going out of my mind. I had already repaired office, updated everything, reinstalled office, reinstalled the mouse drivers, etc before finding this post. Whew my mouse now works again.

  4. Thank you — worked for me too, after MUCH frustration!
    I installed Office 2007 Home Edition (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote) on my Vista machine six months ago and had no trouble with Word or my mouse until I separately purchased and installed Outlook earlier this week. I was about ready to uninstall Outlook and destroy the CD when I found your solution.

  5. You, sir, are a genius…
    I found there were a couple keys that needed renaming, hopefully not to any bad effect, and so far so good!
    Needless to say you’ve saved me countless hours and a lot of money that would otherwise have gone straight into the swear jar

  6. YES!!!!!!!!!!!!! It worked!!!!! I renamed the Settings key to BadData and everything worked again!!!!!
    Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!

  7. Many, many thanks! Just got an MS update yesterday that caused this [Vista] problem. Your post gave me a quick fix!

  8. Just another of the many thanks. Glad I found this before removing and reinstalling software. It may be related to other USB issues I’m having when connecting and disconnecting my Windows Mobile phone.

  9. I experienced this same problem on a machine running Win 7 64-bit and Office 2007. I just had Win7 installed on the machine a month ago and it worked fine until yesterday Word started refusing to close and then the mouse buttons quit functioning inside the Word editing window (they still worked in other office applications and in the menus of Word).
    This fix seems to have corrected both problems. Many, many thanks!

  10. Thanks for the simple fix to this annoying problem! I am surprised that it has propagated into 2010 without being resolved. Thanks again 🙂

  11. I had the same issue. I then discovered that by right mouse clicking several times on the content inside an email, it started working again, even for new emails. Outlook 2007 has many quirks.

  12. Thank you – it worked. But the actual final folder to be renamed is originally called ‘Data’ rather than is displaying above for me as just ‘D’ (Maybe my browser not displaying the run-over text properly.
    Thanks again – a solution that actually works first time. I was beginning to think I would have to re-install … phew!

  13. Thank You. I have had to use this twice You are now a tab on my toolbar. Don’t understand why it came back but I now have a solution that lasted about 4 weeks.

  14. Sound excellent.
    Do you have a solution for Word 2010 in Windows 10…
    Maybe the wholw folder HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data
    ???

  15. Hi Meryl Evans
    I faced the same problem with my Office 07 after running a update on win-10. Half a day was lost troubleshooting and finally your blog helped me. Thanks a lot

  16. Ditto for Word 2007 and a recent Windows 10 update! Thanks so much, Meryl!!!!! And thank goodness for google locating this with my search!!

  17. Windows 10, Office 7.
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data
    So grateful!

  18. Ms. Evans, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have a laptop that had the same problem and I was procrastinating on doing something about it. But when my desktop all of a sudden got the same “disease”, I needed to do something. I even uninstalled Office, cleaned the computer after, turned it off and on a couple of times and then reinstalled Office again, only to discover in horror that it was not fixed. I looked online several posts that really didn’t help, until I found yours…. Hesitant, I tried it and IT WORKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It took 5 minutes to fix what I had spent 3+ hours trying to resolve. I am elated that I found your post and even more elated that you decided to write it!!! Thank you SOOOOOOOOOOOO much!!!!

  19. FYI, I am using Windows 10 Pro with Office 2007 on both devices, so your solution is as relevant today as it was 10 years ago.

  20. Thanks so much, you saved me after searching and searching for a fix for this! I’m running Windows 10, with 2007 Word. This worked for me beautifully!

  21. I just wanted to let you know that the solution worked for me too in Windows 10. Thanks for sharing.

  22. Apparently Microsoft hasn’t found this bug yet even after more than a decade later.
    This is crazy. This worked perfectly.
    Thanks a lot!!

  23. Unbelievable…. 12 28 2022 with Windows 10 same problem and it worked after I spent hours like everyone else until I found this blog

  24. Absolutely amazing ! Thanks so much, I have no idea what’s caused this (maybe a Windows update recently) but I’ve had this problem for a couple of days. Found this fix of yours after lengthy searching and its fixed ! Can’t believe this is still an issue after all these years. Thanks again

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