Search/Find Down Arrow Suddenly Not Working

[neil1967]

Strange problem: Running Word 2010 on Vista Home Basic. Up until this week, the Search/Find feature has been working perfectly. I type in a search term, it highlights all and I can use the up and down arrows to step to the next instance in the document. This week, something strange happened.



First, I will type in a search term and it will highlight all of them, but as soon as I go to use the down arrow to step through them, it stays on the instance it's presently on and won't go down. Also, all the yellow highlighting of the instances the cursor is not currently on disappear. And, each time I hit the arrow, there is a little flicker of yellow on the other instances visible on the page, but the highlighting won't move to the next instance. I CAN, however, use the UP arrow and it will step backward like it's supposed to, but the yellow highlighting still only appears as a brief flicker when I hit the arrow, but disappears otherwise.

Second, if I open the document, perform the search and nothing else, and then go to close it, it asks me if I want to Save changes I've made when I haven't made any. Sort of like the infamous Save prompt after one prints a Word document.

Third, when I open up Options and choose "Incremental Find," if after I close it and then reopen it, the Incremental Find is not retained. I have to go and reset it.

All strange behavior from something that was working perfectly before. There's a part of me that feels it's an issue with the .dotx template (which is why it's prompting me to save and not retaining my Search options), but I don't see how that relates to not being able to step through with the down arrow...is it a virus? I've run a full virus scan and found nothing. I've tried to run the MS Office Repair and it made no difference. I'm at a loss...

Thanks.