[RedSwirl]

I recently got MS Office 2021 standalone on a deal, and have since discovered the compare documents feature in Word 2021. Whenever I use it though, sometimes my entire screen will freeze for a brief moment before quickly going black and then returning to normal. This will happen every few seconds while the document comparison window is open.

I checked my task manager and the RAM and CPU don't seem to be chocking. The laptop I have this installed on is fairly old -- a Dell Inspiron 7559 from 2015 with a 2.3GHz i5-6300HQ CPU. It came with 8GB of RAM but I upgraded it to 16 and have had no problems with it since.

 

[Corday]

Your hardware is way over the need. Make sure Word and Windows are fully up to date.

 

[spunk.funk]

Right click the Start Button and choose Apps and Features. Scroll down to Microsoft Office. If you have an earlier version of MS Office installed, (ie) 2019 or earlier, uninstall that, then restart.
Return to App and Features and click MS Office and chose Modify. First choose a Quick Repair. You can also do an Online Repair.
If you still have issues choose to Run Word or any other Office app in Safe Mode

 

[RedSwirl]

Right click the Start Button and choose Apps and Features. Scroll down to Microsoft Office. If you have an earlier version of MS Office installed, (ie) 2019 or earlier, uninstall that, then restart.
Return to App and Features and click MS Office and chose Modify. First choose a Quick Repair. You can also do an Online Repair.
If you still have issues choose to Run Word or any other Office app in Safe Mode

When I first installed Office 2021 I already had Office 2010 installed, but uninstalled it soon after. The Apps and Features list shows that it isn't there anymore, though there is a language pack from 2010 left over. I'll try uninstalling that and restarting.

 

[spunk.funk]

You can Uninstall All versions of Office, restart and Reinstall it. You will not loose any settings or documents, it just replaces the Office Suite.

 

[RedSwirl]

I just uninstalled every office program, rebooted, reinstalled Office 2021, and rebooted. The blackouts still happen when I go into document comparison mode in Word.

 

[RedSwirl]

I think it was the "Revisions" pane on the left side of the screen that caused the blackouts. The few times I've closed that pane, the review function works fine.