Cannot undock Access 2007 property sheet

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Hi all,

Can anyone think of a way that I might have broken Access 2007 that would prevent me from undocking a property sheet? E.g., when designing a form and looking at the form properites, the property sheet is always docked to the right side of the Access program window. Other people say that hovering the mouse around the title of the property sheet turns the mouse pointer into a four headed arrow, and at that point you can undock the property sheet. I never get the four headed arrow. I can get the two headed arrow that allows me to change the width of the property sheet, but it can never be undocked. Config is:

Dell optiplex 760, 4G mem
GE Force 9300GE display adapter with dual monitors connected, desktop in extended into the second monitor
New clean installation of Windows 7 RTM, fully up to date
New installation of Office 2007, fully up to date.

I had XP and Office 2003 the same hardware a couple months ago when I added the second monitor, and I experienced the same behavior, except the property sheet was “stuck” along the bottom of the Access 2003 window, which I first noticed it after adding the second monitor (that doesn’t mean that’s really when it first happened, just when I noticed it). I didn’t pay too much attention, as I was planning the OS and Office upgrades, but after moving to Win 7 and Office 2007, I have the same behavior.

I’ve tried going back to a single monitor, and installing the lastest nvidia driver, neither helped.

Thanks,

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One possibility is that you have the Tabbed Documents option set for your database. However property boxes do behave somewhat differently in 2007 that with prior versions of Access. For that matter so do the windows, as the multiple windows document interface in prior versions of Access has been removed.

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I get this behavior with tabbed documents and with floating windows.

So I guess I should ask, is it even possible to float a property sheet? I got the impression from my research and posts at another forum that it is possible.

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Yes, it is possible. If you are in the “floating windows” view, you can undock the Properties window (or the Add Existing Fields window) by hoovering the mouse at the top of the title bar for Properties, and then clicking and dragging it. But you have to drag it almost to the center of the screen before it undocks. And it should stay that way if you then close it, and then reopen the Properties window. However, you can’t see both the Properties and the Add Existing Fields windows – they toggle back and forth depending on which button on the ribbon you click. Another questionable improvement in the 2007 user interface…

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This is exactly what I cannot do. I never get the four arrow mouse pointer when hovering over the top of the title bar of the Properties window. I’ve tried dragging anyway, and that doesn’t work. I can make it as wide as I please, but there’s no undocking it. That why I’m thinking I’ve “broken” the Office confic somehow. Perhpas I took some action that created a registry entry that prevents floating. I’ve spend quite a while searching the registry for a likely entry, also done a repair install. No help.

This seems to be a rare problem. Usually with MS products, you can count on someone having experienced most problems before you encounter them if you are not an early adopter. In this case, I found one person who experienced the same issue, then she followed up and said the problem cured itself, which was not helpful.

I have a suspicion that something was tweaked deep in the heart of Windows when I installed the second monitor, but then I heard from someone using two monitors who doesn’t have the issue, so I don’t know what to think.

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FYI, I do work with dual (and sometimes triple) monitors and it works for me.

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Working with a dual monitor, this is where I need to position the mouse to get the required 4 pointed arrow needed to undock the property sheet.

Switching between Tabbed documents and Overlapping windows did not change that. With Tabbed documents (which I normally don’t use) it did not seem to be possible to dock the porperties box, but I could undock it the normal way.

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Hi John,

The location in your clip is exactly where I’ve been trying (as well as all around that general vicinity). The cursor remains the single arrow unless I hover over the left edge of the property sheet, in which case it turns to the two headed arrow and lets me change the width. That’s why I think I’ve inadvertantly changed something that should never be changed. It’s like something’s locked.

Thanks,

Mike
.

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John is correct – I hadn’t tried undocking the properties sheet task bar in the tabbed view (which we use quite a bit because of issues with Print Previews being hidden behind modal pop-up forms), but did and it works just fine. My guess is that you have encountered a Win7 issue, although I’m sure it was tested extensively with both 2007 and the upcoming 2010. And I suspect most Microsoft people do run dual monitors.

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