MS Word problem - computer and mouse

Hi all - I'm not great at computer stuff, so bear with me!

I have a dell ispiron 1420, which I got from the USA with preinstalled software, and use it in the UK.

I quite often have a few windows of MS word open, which I flick between using alt+tab. It's to take notes all in one document.

But, there's this really weird thing which happens every now and then. When I switch back sometimes it completely reconfigures my keyboard and mouse commands, so some things work normally and osme things don't. The most noticeable thing is the mouse: when you click on a word, it opens the 'research' encarta dictionary at the side, giving me the dictinoary definitions of the word i've just clicked on. The keyboard works normally for some things, but totally wackily for others (doing certain things are like shortcuts - Ctrl+I, I just found out, is print preview!)

The way to get out of this is to press Alt+Shift. I thought, then, initially that it was switching to some other language's or country's keboard. So, I installed the spanish one, so I had the language box in the bottom right of my toolbar, and I could see what was going on.

No such luck - it still happens, and I just end up with "ñ" rather than ";" when I come out of the problem with alt+shift.


It's not hte end of the world, as I know a way around it. but, stopping htis happneing would be great, and I'd be really interested to know WHAT is going on, too, as I can't seem to see any particular reason why it happens when it does.

All help much appreciated!

F Keyboard Problem