word is freezing when coping data

I am a computer tech and I've run into a problem that I'm hoping you guys might be able to help me out with (I'm doing this as a favor for a friend on my own time). I'm working on a 1.4 Ghz laptop running XP with 1 gig of Ram.

The problem is fairly simple. Every time you copy and paste more than a page or so of information (generally from the web but not always), the machine hard locks. As in no ctrl-alt-del. I have to power down the machine.

I cannot recreate the problem in safe mode.

I have done the following steps:
Turned off hardware graphics acceleration.
Deleted normal.dot
Deleted the Data folder out of the registry key
Deleted all temp data
Attempted to use non-formatted data for pasting (smart-paste).
Checked for any extra add-ons (it's barebones and has none that I can find.)

I did find that the latest updates including security updates were not installed. I did this, but the problem still exists.

I'd appreciate any suggestions (yes, I have done a full removal and reinstallation of the program as well!).

It happens only with word not on other applications.

Hi there

This is one problem which i never understood why it happens!!!! :rolleyes:

However I managed to fix this problem by disabling one of Word's features.

Go to: Tools->Options; click on the "Edit" tab.
Uncheck the box "Use smart cut and paste"

Now, when pasting in non text-only formats, you will have to use paste-special, but it will prevent freezing...

The word hangs only when you paste in the default format of HTML, the other workaround is to use Paste Special and change to RTF or Unformatted.

see if it helps you ;)