Paste under Excel 2007 and 2010 goes into infinite loop under Windows 7 ultimate

Hello all,

Some time ago and for no obvious reason, the paste function, whether after a copy or a cut, goes into a loop which can either last a few minutes or end with Windows freezing, needing a brutal "power off reboot".

This problem only occurs under Excel, whether 2007 or 2010. All other software, whether MS or third parties, paste correctly.

Pasting the content of two or three adjacent cells from a single column is OK. Trying to do the same accross two or more columns triggers the problem.

When I open the task manager, I can see the Excel process growing, growing, growing until the system freezes as I said above. But again, it does sometimes end up pasting correctly, but never before the process has grown to at least 1.5 GB (!).

I have tried to increase my memory from 2 GB to 3 GB, no luck!

I have tried to uninstall and reinstall Office 2007, no luck!

I purchased Office 2010 and tried to install it after having uninstalled Office 2007. Office 2010 would not install (Error 1310 and other!).

I downloaded the FixIt install/uninstall repair tool, which removed all kinds of Office 2007 and 2010 previously hidden bits and pieces, including something called Office 2007 hybrid (?), plus all sorts of language proofing stuff in languages I never use such as Arabic and Hebrew. I do work in several languages but have never installed anything related to these languages (don't tell me its Mossad playing tricks on me! ). Besides, I have done so since I started using Excell eons ago without any similar problems.

FYI, I did install the evaluation version of Office 2010 back in 2011 but quickly uninstalled it as it was riddled with bugs (I write a lot of complex macros under VBA). From what I could understand, this version was only a GUI client accessing some cloud-based server (or was it). In any case, I strongly suspect that it was this piece of junk which probably polluted my machine.

After that, Office 2010 French installed properly, including the English and German language packs I had purchased along with the core package. It works perfectly (so far) except for this very annoying bug.

In desperation, I am now considering the reinstallation of Windows 7, as I strongly suspect that something has gone wrong at this level, what with the bug affecting both Office 2007 and 2010, which would of course imply that Excel does its pastes in a non standard way. But that would not surprise me!

We all know what reinstalling Windows means, and I was hoping that somebody out there could help me with a simpler fix!