Runaway Spreadsheet?

Hi,

One of our users has a strange problem in Excel. It seems that when he opens
the program, and highlights a cell, the curser remains 'pressed down', so
when he moves the mouse, the curser selection just highlights more cells,
and he can't 'unclick' or stop the selection, it's as if he's selected a
cell and kept his finger on the mouse, or held down shift (which I initially
thought he had), and can only highlight more cells. When this happens he
can't close excel, select anything from the toolbar, and the only way of
getting out of it, is to alt+tab to another program, and then
ctrl+alt+delete and end excel. I've seen similar issues in the past with
sticky shift or windows keys, and windows explorer pops up every time
someone hits the 'E' key, but that's not happening in this case, I'd expect
highlighting in word to have the same issue if it was a sticky key, but
there are no other problems with any other programs.

We've tried closing excel, and I'm getting the user to reboot now. But I'm
just wondering if this is a known issue, or just a one off strange quirk?

Cheers

Ben

Press F8 once.

HTH
--
AP

<[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de news:
[email protected]...
> Hi,
>
> One of our users has a strange problem in Excel. It seems that when he
> opens the program, and highlights a cell, the curser remains 'pressed
> down', so when he moves the mouse, the curser selection just highlights
> more cells, and he can't 'unclick' or stop the selection, it's as if he's
> selected a cell and kept his finger on the mouse, or held down shift
> (which I initially thought he had), and can only highlight more cells.
> When this happens he can't close excel, select anything from the toolbar,
> and the only way of getting out of it, is to alt+tab to another program,
> and then ctrl+alt+delete and end excel. I've seen similar issues in the
> past with sticky shift or windows keys, and windows explorer pops up every
> time someone hits the 'E' key, but that's not happening in this case, I'd
> expect highlighting in word to have the same issue if it was a sticky key,
> but there are no other problems with any other programs.
>
> We've tried closing excel, and I'm getting the user to reboot now. But I'm
> just wondering if this is a known issue, or just a one off strange quirk?
>
> Cheers
>
> Ben
>

Do you have problems with other apps? You could replace (separately) the
keyboard and mouse just to eliminate that as the cause of the problem.
Other than that it's possibly a software problem.

Regards.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Hi,
>
> One of our users has a strange problem in Excel. It seems that when he
> opens the program, and highlights a cell, the curser remains 'pressed
> down', so when he moves the mouse, the curser selection just highlights
> more cells, and he can't 'unclick' or stop the selection, it's as if he's
> selected a cell and kept his finger on the mouse, or held down shift
> (which I initially thought he had), and can only highlight more cells.
> When this happens he can't close excel, select anything from the toolbar,
> and the only way of getting out of it, is to alt+tab to another program,
> and then ctrl+alt+delete and end excel. I've seen similar issues in the
> past with sticky shift or windows keys, and windows explorer pops up every
> time someone hits the 'E' key, but that's not happening in this case, I'd
> expect highlighting in word to have the same issue if it was a sticky key,
> but there are no other problems with any other programs.
>
> We've tried closing excel, and I'm getting the user to reboot now. But I'm
> just wondering if this is a known issue, or just a one off strange quirk?
>
> Cheers
>
> Ben
>

HTH wrote <<Press F8 once>>

F8 is a nice key and without prejudice to any other key and in order to be
super politically correct is no more or less inferior or superior to any
other key.

Out of curiosity what does it do and in this particular issue?

Thanks.

Bill Ridgeway
Computer Solutions

"Ardus Petus" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Press F8 once.
>
> HTH
> --
> AP
>
> <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de news:
> [email protected]...
>> Hi,
>>
>> One of our users has a strange problem in Excel. It seems that when he
>> opens the program, and highlights a cell, the curser remains 'pressed
>> down', so when he moves the mouse, the curser selection just highlights
>> more cells, and he can't 'unclick' or stop the selection, it's as if he's
>> selected a cell and kept his finger on the mouse, or held down shift
>> (which I initially thought he had), and can only highlight more cells.
>> When this happens he can't close excel, select anything from the toolbar,
>> and the only way of getting out of it, is to alt+tab to another program,
>> and then ctrl+alt+delete and end excel. I've seen similar issues in the
>> past with sticky shift or windows keys, and windows explorer pops up
>> every time someone hits the 'E' key, but that's not happening in this
>> case, I'd expect highlighting in word to have the same issue if it was a
>> sticky key, but there are no other problems with any other programs.
>>
>> We've tried closing excel, and I'm getting the user to reboot now. But
>> I'm just wondering if this is a known issue, or just a one off strange
>> quirk?
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Ben
>>
>
>

F8 toggles Extended Selection Mode, which looks like what OP described.

Cheers,
--
AP

"Bill Ridgeway" <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de news:
[email protected]...
> HTH wrote <<Press F8 once>>
>
> F8 is a nice key and without prejudice to any other key and in order to be
> super politically correct is no more or less inferior or superior to any
> other key.
>
> Out of curiosity what does it do and in this particular issue?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Bill Ridgeway
> Computer Solutions
>
> "Ardus Petus" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> Press F8 once.
>>
>> HTH
>> --
>> AP
>>
>> <[email protected]> a écrit dans le message de news:
>> [email protected]...
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> One of our users has a strange problem in Excel. It seems that when he
>>> opens the program, and highlights a cell, the curser remains 'pressed
>>> down', so when he moves the mouse, the curser selection just highlights
>>> more cells, and he can't 'unclick' or stop the selection, it's as if
>>> he's selected a cell and kept his finger on the mouse, or held down
>>> shift (which I initially thought he had), and can only highlight more
>>> cells. When this happens he can't close excel, select anything from the
>>> toolbar, and the only way of getting out of it, is to alt+tab to another
>>> program, and then ctrl+alt+delete and end excel. I've seen similar
>>> issues in the past with sticky shift or windows keys, and windows
>>> explorer pops up every time someone hits the 'E' key, but that's not
>>> happening in this case, I'd expect highlighting in word to have the same
>>> issue if it was a sticky key, but there are no other problems with any
>>> other programs.
>>>
>>> We've tried closing excel, and I'm getting the user to reboot now. But
>>> I'm just wondering if this is a known issue, or just a one off strange
>>> quirk?
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> Ben
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

"Bill Ridgeway" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Do you have problems with other apps? You could replace (separately) the
> keyboard and mouse just to eliminate that as the cause of the problem.
> Other than that it's possibly a software problem.
>
> Regards.
>
> Bill Ridgeway
> Computer Solutions

Hi Bill,

No other problems with the apps. Tried pulling the USB mouse out, and
disabling the mouse pad, as it's a laptop couldn't do much with the
keyboard. I got the user to reboot, and it seems fine now. I will test
Ardus's suggestion of pressing F8, to see if I can similar the issue again,
I guess pressing it once will turn the 'Extended Selection Mode' on, then
off again.

Ben

"Ardus Petus" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:%[email protected]...
> F8 toggles Extended Selection Mode, which looks like what OP described.
>
> Cheers,
> --
> AP
>

Hi Ardus,

Thanks for the reply. I got the user to reboot, which fixed the original
issue, however up on testing your solution, it seems to re-create the
problem we had, and then pressing f8 again fixes it, so I can only assume
the user had pressed f8 to cause the original issue.
Thanks for the solution, I didn't know about this function before. May come
in useful again in the future.

Cheers

Ben

> Computer Solutions


--
Don Guillett
SalesAid Software
[email protected]
"Bill Ridgeway" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> Do you have problems with other apps? You could replace (separately) the
> keyboard and mouse just to eliminate that as the cause of the problem.
> Other than that it's possibly a software problem.
>
> Regards.
>
> Bill Ridgeway
> Computer Solutions
>
> <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>> Hi,
>>
>> One of our users has a strange problem in Excel. It seems that when he
>> opens the program, and highlights a cell, the curser remains 'pressed
>> down', so when he moves the mouse, the curser selection just highlights
>> more cells, and he can't 'unclick' or stop the selection, it's as if he's
>> selected a cell and kept his finger on the mouse, or held down shift
>> (which I initially thought he had), and can only highlight more cells.
>> When this happens he can't close excel, select anything from the toolbar,
>> and the only way of getting out of it, is to alt+tab to another program,
>> and then ctrl+alt+delete and end excel. I've seen similar issues in the
>> past with sticky shift or windows keys, and windows explorer pops up
>> every time someone hits the 'E' key, but that's not happening in this
>> case, I'd expect highlighting in word to have the same issue if it was a
>> sticky key, but there are no other problems with any other programs.
>>
>> We've tried closing excel, and I'm getting the user to reboot now. But
>> I'm just wondering if this is a known issue, or just a one off strange
>> quirk?
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Ben
>>
>
>