Program / Page is unresponsive

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Richard Sinkler
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Joined: 15 Aug 1998 12:01 am
Location: aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana

Program / Page is unresponsive

Post by Richard Sinkler »

Does anyone have any idea as to why this happens. Mostly I get the "program is not responding", or the page has become unresponsive, kill page or wait. The page error doesn't bother me as much as the program becoming unresponsive. It happens at some point to most programs, but it happens a lot with Microsoft Word and Excel, Adobe applications and VLC media player and Virtual DJ media players. It also happens with browsers, where I have to close it down. I use Chrome as a default, but occasionally use IE 11, and Firefox (FF is the worst). The only way I can get out of the program is to open task manager and kill the program from there. Some times task manager won't open and the computer just hangs there and I have to do a hard re-boot.

My computers are set to defrag automatically once a week (while I sleep). Other utilities, like Malwarebytes, also run on a schedule.

Using Win7.
Carter D10 8p/7k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup, Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112, Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open G slide
and regular G tuning guitar) .
Playing for 55 years and still counting.
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Robert Leaman
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Location: Murphy, North Carolina, USA

Post by Robert Leaman »

I had this same problem with Microsoft Word. It crashed continually and the computer locked with a dimmed page. The only method to continue without a reboot is to use Task Manager as you say. I updated (purchased) MS Word 2013 and all the problems disappeared. Kind of expensive but I need to have a working copy of Word.
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Wiz Feinberg
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Post by Wiz Feinberg »

Running old versions of MS Office on modern operating systems is an uphill battle. Many were made for Windows 2000 or XP Professional and are not 100% compatible with the newer Windows OSs.

Further, ongoing Windows Updates for Office vulnerabilities often cause problems with older versions of Office. Sometimes, patching a .dll or ole file can cause crashes and odd results when editing files.

For those of you who are affected by these problems, try running those executables in Windows 2000 or XP Compatibility Mode.
"Wiz" Feinberg, Moderator SGF Computers Forum
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Richard Sinkler
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Joined: 15 Aug 1998 12:01 am
Location: aka: Rusty Strings -- Missoula, Montana

Post by Richard Sinkler »

It's not just MS Office. It happens on other programs, and even Windows Explorer, which makes me have to turn the computer off and reboot. It also happens on my Laptop. Both running Win7. Very frustrating.
Carter D10 8p/7k, Dekley S10 3p/4k C6 setup, Regal RD40 Dobro, Recording King Professional Dobro, NV400, NV112, Ibanez Gio guitar, Epiphone SG Special (open G slide
and regular G tuning guitar) .
Playing for 55 years and still counting.
Dave Potter
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Joined: 15 Apr 2003 12:01 am
Location: Texas

Post by Dave Potter »

I'm certainly no expert in these things. And unfortunately, I don't have a solution to your problem, which could be caused by multiple issues.

As an example, I struggled for months when the "Help" utility for my upgraded Sony Vegas Pro video editing software, a *.chm file, refused to display properly. The "fix" ended up to be that Internet Explorer, of all things, on my PC, was not at its default settings. Who would have suspected that? Certainly not me. There was nothing in the documentation about that. But, setting "Explorer" to default fixed it. Sometimes, the answer is "outside the box", and well outside the "helpful" error messages.

But it took me months to stumble onto this solution, and the point is, solutions aren't always obvious, and error prompts are often worthless. I just wanted to add a data point on the journey to the resolution.

How this same issue should be occurring on both your PC and your laptop is really odd, IMO. But since it's happening on multiple applications, it would appear to be less app-related, and more system-related.

The first thing I'd be doing, faced with a similar problem, would be to run my JV16 registry cleaner software, which I always get called to task for any time I mention it here. But one needs to have some kind of confidence level that the registry is in decent health, and not polluted with dysfunctional entries. That application, which I've used for more than 10 years, has helped me with that aspect.

Other things you could do would be to run a system file check (sfc /scannow) and chkdsk C: /f, just to try to insure your file system is intact. You may have already done these things.

Let us know how it goes.
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