Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The trouble is not with your television set...


Where have We been, you ask?  Otherwise occupied.  However, now that We have returned, We find We are having Technical Difficulties.  (You may have noticed that today's epistle bears no resemblance to epistles past.)

Ordinarily, We type this whole mess out in Micro$oft Weird(TM), then copy it over here.  However, Our current problem is this:  Micro$oft Weird(TM) won't let Us copy anything out of it.  Not with control-C, not with the mouse, nor any of the other ways one can copy.  The clipboard remains empty when We try it (also when We cut (control-X).  Although, when We cut, the text does disappear.

And this is a specifically Micro$oft Weird(TM) problem.  We can copy from anywhere else, and We can even paste said copied things into Micro$oft Weird(TM).

We only discovered this problem when We had half a horoscope typed, which is why We didn't start over in here.

Do any of You Lovely People have any idea how to fix this problem?  (Obviously, We could uninstall/reinstall Micro$oft Orifice(TM),  but if We've just accidentally checked some "don't allow copying" box, We'd rather not do that.  (Why is Google Chrome telling Us that "uninstall" IS a word, while "reinstall" isn't?  That doesn't bode well...))

At any rate, please respond if you have any clue (or even if you don't...We're bored.)

EDITED TO ADD: We realized that, while We had closed and reopened Micro$oft Weird(TM), We had not yet rebooted the entire computer.  Problem solved.  But still...the fuck?  Anybody got a likely explanation?

Alternatively, go watch this:



6 comments:

  1. The only explanation I can think of (and I don't have these problems because I use an operating system that was designed in this millennium) is that your clipboard was full. I know you wrote that it wasn't but if it is full at one point, the memory or cache might not have reset. Rebooting will always resolve this problem, but the best thing to do if it happens again is save the document and restart Word, which would probably free the clipboard, too. If that doesn't work, there are system settings you can mess with involving virtual memory and whatnot, but if you save the file and reboot in the future, you can avoid that and not have to learn about how the control panel works (hint: it doesn't; not really, anyway).

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  2. All that said, if this problem starts to happen more often, there are a few things you can do. Increase the virtual memory (if you have plenty of disk space, anyway) is the most obvious. It is possible, though, that your system updated and the machine didn't go through a complete boot cycle, which could cause problems with memory, as files are shifted around, renamed and then moved back with the original name as the registry is updated. (It's an archaic process that nobody should need to know, but the takeaway is to make sure your machine has been rebooted after any updates.)

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  3. I figgered you would have an answer. Restarting Word didn't fix it. (But I can't believe I didn't think of rebooting the whole computer till after I typed this entry.) But the clipboard didn't delusionally think it was full, as I could copy things from anywhere BUT Word and they would appear on the clipboard, and I could paste them into the doc.

    Your point about an update might be a good one; since I last reinstalled Windows, I don't seem to be on a regular update schedule. (I used to allow Windows updates at 3AM on Sunday morning; now they seem to happen whenever they want to.) I should probably look into that.

    Of course, what I need is a new computer, but that doesn't appear to be happening any time soon.

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  4. Well, I know you are resistant to change, but I really do hope that, when you do get a new machine, you get a Mac. If I were you, I'd get a Mac Mini, which is about the size of a box of envelopes. You'd be able to keep your same keyboard, mouse, speakers and monitor, but you'd have an operating system that doesn't need to be rebooted regularly and isn't susceptible to viruses. Aside from all of those great benefits, you'd have a much more powerful operating system that is intuitive and pretty much always does what you need it to when you need it done.

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  5. I wouldn't be so resistant to change if it didn't always result in things being DIFFERENT.

    And I've never even had a Big Mac.

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  6. Well, a Mac would come with change you would have to believe in because it isn't a belief: it's a fact.

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