WD97: Word Hangs During Copy/Paste or Drag/Drop of Object

• Microsoft Word 97 for Windows

SYMPTOMS

If you perform a certain sequence of specific steps involving cutting, pasting, undoing, and dragging an object back and forth from another program into Word, you may receive the following error message:

   This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.

   WinWord has caused an invalid page fault in module MSO97.DLL

RESOLUTION

The error is specific to the order in which the editing steps are performed.

MORE INFORMATION

This error is caused by a rare occurrence of very specific steps.

In general these errors only occur if one or more objects and some text are selected, then a cut, and then followed by an undo command prior to some other object movement operations. This should not cause an ongoing problem because the second time this is tried, the undo command will not be required, as the incorrect items will not have been selected prior to the cut.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Word 97 for Windows. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.