Slow Cut and Paste on Microsoft Word (2003) Document

After Windows 11 update KB5031455 on 10/27/2023, I began experiencing a problem in Microsoft Word (Office 2003) with the cut and paste feature. When I would highlight text in Winword, then attempt to paste it anywhere, even on the same page or to another Document file, or even in Notepad, it would stall out for 10-15 seconds before pasting the text. While I acknowledge that my Office 2003, Winword, is old and not supported it seems like MS programmers would be smart enough to not mess up my installed software that I bought and paid for.

After I uninstalled KB5031455 then Winword started working correctly as before. Any suggestions?

I'm not having an issue with Word 15/Office 2013 with either pasting into it from another source or copy then paste into Notepad, latest updates to Win11.

I would verify the integrity of your current version before applying the update.
Open a command prompt as administrator and type sfc /scannow
Pay attention to the scan results to see if SFC found anything it could not repair. If it found corruption it could not fix followup with this command (note the spaces)
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
Restart computer

glasskuter said:

I would verify the integrity of your current version before applying the update.
Open a command prompt as administrator and type sfc /scannow
Pay attention to the scan results to see if SFC found anything it could not repair. If it found corruption it could not fix followup with this command (note the spaces)
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth
Restart computer

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Thanks glasskuter, seems like MS repaired their updates because after uninstalling KB5031455 I checked for updates and "2023-10 Update for Windows 11 Version 22H2 for x64-based Systems (KB4023057)" and "Windows 11, version 23H2" downloaded and installed. After the restarts I ran and checked the cut and paste in Microsoft Word, and it worked as designed.

If I could afford the newer Microsoft Office I would have installed it already, but due to some health issues and the rotten economy it is just not possible now to purchase new software.

jeffbeish said:

If I could afford the newer Microsoft Office I would have installed it already, but due to some health issues and the rotten economy it is just not possible now to purchase new software.

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That's quite understandable, I haven't done it either. To that end for the mostly-Senior clients I have I install the free LibreOffice, only thing it doesn't have built-in is an E-Mail client and something equivalent to Publisher. And it can open quite a few different formats, particularly from Works which a lot of my clients had 'in the day' and created recipes. For an installed E-Mail Client there are free alternatives such as the one comes with the SeaMonkey Browser and another is OE Classic.

Berton said:

That's quite understandable, I haven't done it either. To that end for the mostly-Senior clients I have I install the free LibreOffice, only thing it doesn't have built-in is an E-Mail client and something equivalent to Publisher. And it can open quite a few different formats, particularly from Works which a lot of my clients had 'in the day' and created recipes. For an installed E-Mail Client there are free alternatives such as the one comes with the SeaMonkey Browser and another is OE Classic.

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I have used Apache_OpenOffice_4.1.13_Win_x86 with success, but after fixing Office 2003 EXCEL and WINWORD it was much easier to use them instead. Besides, the age thing caught up with me and convinced me to stick with what I knew.

A bit of history, both LibreOffice and OpenOffice have roots back to the old Star Office some 30 or more years ago, I first used it in about '93 [got first computer in '92]. The executable files in LibreOffice are named with an s at the beginning as in swriter, simpress, sdraw, scalc, etc.

One other difference, OpenOffice is 32-bit/x86 and LibreOffice is available as either 32-bit or 64-bit.

Berton said:

A bit of history, both LibreOffice and OpenOffice have roots back to the old Star Office some 30 or more years ago, I first used it in about '93 [got first computer in '92]. The executable files in LibreOffice are named with an s at the beginning as in swriter, simpress, sdraw, scalc, etc.

One other difference, OpenOffice is 32-bit/x86 and LibreOffice is available as either 32-bit or 64-bit.

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After getting this new Dell laptop with Windows 11 there were a few problems getting some old software to work, but I did prevail. Before finding the cures for installing Office 2003 someone suggested OpenOffice and it was interesting and nice to use. It is just hard for me to break habits.

jeffbeish said:

convinced me to stick with what I knew.

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The best software is the one you know. I still use Office 2007.

Well, I thought updates were over for this week, but surprise, surprise -- here came along the spider..... Guess MS reinstalled what was the typical mid-week updates, hopefully the ones that work. Again, surprise, surprise, Office 2003 still functions.

jeffbeish said:

Office 2003 still functions

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I am using Office 2003 as well.
Reason is that I don't like the Ribbon interface. Tried to get used to it in Office 2007 but after about 2 years went back to 2003 version.

I did not notice any problems with the program, related to the newer updates (installed KB5031455 as well, but no problems).

As I use only self made Word and Excel documents, I don't really fear for viruses spread by .doc, .docx, .xls, and .xlsx files.
As an extra measure I have an extension in Firefox that is called "Google Docs Viewer" so that those files that are linked to in any site, will appear via Google docs instead of opening in Office. That functions for Powerpoint files as well. Such an extension is available for Chrome too and certainly as well for Chromium browsers.

Kees said:

I am using Office 2003 as well.
Reason is that I don't like the Ribbon interface. Tried to get used to it in Office 2007 but after about 2 years went back to 2003 version.

I did not notice any problems with the program, related to the newer updates (installed KB5031455 as well, but no problems).

As I use only self made Word and Excel documents, I don't really fear for viruses spread by .doc, .docx, .xls, and .xlsx files.
As an extra measure I have an extension in Firefox that is called "Google Docs Viewer" so that those files that are linked to in any site, will appear via Google docs instead of opening in Office. That functions for Powerpoint files as well. Such an extension is available for Chrome too and certainly as well for Chromium browsers.

Click to expand...

My problem was most likely a corrupted file. It is fixed now.

Now, after some updates my Word spell checker 9s messed up. Oh well. I'll did up the setup disks and USB CD drive and start over with Office 2003 since either a ghost or MS is corrupting some files.

Somehow either I did it or an MS update did it, but when I run the spelling checker on a document and it finds an error it attempts to correct, but the words in the suggestion box are shaded and will not select so to correct the misspelled word. However, if I hit "undo edit" the words in the suggestion box darken and I can select the correct word and it corrects spelling. This has to be some weird registry problem, but I just cannot find anything that may cause the problem. Suggestions?

I'm thinking of restoring the backup (Macrium) I did last week when Office 2003 actually worked and just run updates again to see if messes my Office 2003 stuff up again. Sometimes that works, then sometimes it doesn't.

I chickened out. My back was back in October. MS can update our PC's faster than Superman can, so I'll just use another word processer.

It seems like when I uncheck the "check grammar" features the speller works okay. WEIRD!