BleepingComputer.com: ESC key no longer functioning as Cancel/close in Office 2007, Win7 32-bit.

Hello,

Just a small but inconvenient problem I have. I recently upgraded from Win XP to Win7 32-bit, and installed Office Word 2007 on it. In XP, the ESC key used to act as "Cancel" or "close" to get out of things such as the Find command, or after I had just entered a new AutoCorrect entry, but now I always notice ESC doesn't do anything. I sometimes have to use features such as Find often in my daily work, and need the ESC key to go on functioning as Cancel/Close. What can I do?

Thanks

Laptop or desktop?
Have you tried another keyboard to rule that out?
This is for all applications not just Office, correct?

This post has been edited by garmanma: 14 December 2009 - 04:53 PM

Desktop.
Yes. It's not the keyboard.
Yes, I recently found out that when ESC stops working in Office, it's also stopped working in canceling anything at all.

All I can suggest is check to see if there is any debris lodged underneath the key

I'm sure it's some software issue, as switching to another keyboard has the same effect. Sometimes I notice it come on and off.

EDIT: Oh boy. I Googled "ESC key doesn't work" and right away I found a connection between having Adobe Photoshop CSx open and the ESC key no longer functioning as "cancel." Sure enough, I closed my usually-open Photoshop and ESC started working again. I'll revert back here if it ever doesn't work even with Photoshop closed (and no longer in the RAM as well). Thanks. I didn't think to Google it before posting here because I didn't expect such a relevant fix to a problem that seemed so odd.

This post has been edited by andrewset: 16 December 2009 - 10:30 PM

Thank you for posting the solution