PowerPoint Crashes when Typing Anything on a Mac Running Windows 7 and Bootcamp

Problem: PowerPoint Crashes when Typing Anything on a Mac Running Windows 7 and Bootcamp 3.2



This problem is bizarre. About an hour ago, I tried to start working on a PowerPoint presentation I started on Friday. Whenever I type anything PowerPoint 2007 crashes. Everything worked fine on Friday. (Ahhh!!!! Sometimes I really hate computers.) I'm using a MacBook Pro running Windows 7 64bit and Bootcamp 3.2.



Solution:

The bug appears to be with BootCamp 3.2 and Windows 7. My HP laptop has no such problem. Only my Mac.



Thanks to some smart folks on the Apple forums, there are workaround solutions to this bug. The problem seems to be with Windows, Bootcamp, PowerPoint, and the keyboard driver.



PowerPoint 2007

For PowerPoint 2007 on Windows 7....

1. Open Control Panel


2. Press "Change keyboards or other input methods" from "Clock, Language, and Region"


3. Press "Change keyboards..."


4. Press "Add..."


5. Scroll down to and expand "English (United States)" (if it's not already expanded)


6. Select "US"


7. Press "OK"


8. Press "OK"


9. Press "OK"


10. Close the Control Panel

See Forum Post Here



PowerPoint 2010

Another user performed these steps to fix the problem on PowerPoint 2010.



In PowerPoint 2010..

1. Go to "File", "Options", "Language"


2. Under a the heading "keyboard layout" note the hyperlink which says "not enabled".


3. Click on the hyperlink and select a keyboard layout and the keyboard's language.


4. Once you complete the process it will say "enabled" under the keyboard layout heading.

This should fix the problem.



I can confirm the PowerPoint 2007 fix worked for me. Given the Posts date back to late November it appears this bug has been around a while.