Seeking "dumbed down" WinXP highlighting

[Xema]

I'm running Windows XP Pro. I'd love to be able to turn off all "smart" highlighting - for example, when the highlight "helpfully" jumps to the end of the word when you've placed the cursor on its second letter. On balance, this "feature" is a huge nuisance and the ability to kill it would be wonderful.

I note that this does not work the same way in every application. Am I at the mercy of each app's designer, or is there some way to exterminate this pest once and for all?

[Bosstone]

As you note, it depends on the application. XP provides the tool, but it's up to the program to make use of it.

I can help you with Word, at least: go to Tools->Options...->Edit. Deselect "When selecting, automatically select entire word" and possibly "Smart paragraph selection" as well. Most programs that utilize this should have a similar toggle.

(Note: this is on Word 2003. I can't help you on 2007 if that's what you have, although if you futz around you should be able to find the options.)

[Xema]

Thanks - I managed to get Word sorted out some time back.

One of the worst offenders is the SDMB, when creating or editing a post. Any way to tame that nastiness?

[Dead Badger]

Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge there is no way to turn this utterly infuriating behaviour off. I've spent a long time in the past trying to fix this, to no avail. There doesn't even seem to be a registry hack to achieve it.

The best I can offer is that neither Firefox nor Opera do it, but I appreciate that you probably don't want to switch browsers over something like this. Used to drive me nuts, though; why on earth isn't there an option to say "I'm not a hamfisted yutz, and I selected precisely what I meant to thankyouverymuch"?

[Ximenean]

You can use Shift + left/right arrows, if that's any help. Plus Ctrl to jump a word at a time.