How-To Geek

Problem:
When I try to scroll to the right, either using the arrow or dragging the horizontal scroll bar, the window moves briefly to the right for a second or two and then jumps back to the left. This problem happens with Office Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Firefox.

Folder windows on the other hand are behaving normally (ie the horizontal scroll stays where you put it). The vertical scroll bars works normally on all applications.

When did the problem start:
Yesterday, immediately after I upgraded from Office 2003 to office 2010.

System:
Windows XP professional version 2002 Service Pack 3
DellVostro 410
Intel Core Duo CPU E8400 @ 3.00GHz
2.99Gh,3.00Gb of RAM

I hadn't uninstalled Office 2003 - I didn't think I needed to. Office 2010 over-wrote Office 2003.

Anyway, after reading your post, I uninstalled Office 2010. I tried opening Internet Explorer and the horizontal scrollbar still bounces back to the left :(

I've run Malwarebytes and Norton Utilities to see if there's any virus, and the system is apparently clean.

After spending a day cleaning up the computer, uninstalling programs, searching for similar problems (unsuccessfully) on Google, would you believe it... I discovered it was all the fualt of my mouse!

My old mouse had died, so I changed to a Microsoft Natural Wireless Laser Mouse that I hadn't used for a couple of years. It turns out that the scroll wheel is defective; when it works, it's supposed to scroll both up and down and right and left. Anyway, by deactivating the wheel, the mouse is actually working normally, so I don't even need to find another mouse!