PRJ2000: Microsoft Project Stops Responding When You Switch Between Programs

When you switch to another program such as Microsoft Word, and then switch back to Microsoft Project, Microsoft Project may quit unexpectedly, or you may receive one of the following error messages, depending on your operating system.

Microsoft Windows 2000

Microsoft Project quits unexpectedly with no error message.

Microsoft Windows NT

You receive the following error message:

Microsoft Windows 98

You receive the following error message:

This behavior may occur when all of the following conditions are true:

• The current view in Microsoft Project has had custom cell formatting applied. For example, you have directly formatted selected cells, rows, or columns with non-default fonts or font colors.
• The AutoFilter feature is turned on for the view.

To resolve this problem, obtain Microsoft Project 2000, Service Release 1 (SR-1).

To obtain SR-1, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Temporary Workaround

To temporarily work around this problem, use one of the following methods.

Method 1

Turn off the AutoFilter for the view. To do this, point to Filtered for on the Project menu, and then click AutoFilter.

Method 2

Remove all custom cell formatting from the view. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Make sure all tasks are visible in the view:
   1. Turn off the AutoFilter if it is currently on. (On the Project menu, point to Filtered for, and then click AutoFilter.)
   2. Apply the All Tasks filter. (On the Project menu, point to Filtered for, and then click All Tasks.)
   3. Expand all subtasks. (On the Project menu, point to Outline, point to Show, and then click All Subtasks.)
2. Select all tasks. To do this, click the Select Table button (the blank gray button at the upper-left corner of the table portion of the view).
3. On the Edit menu, point to Clear, and then click Formats.

After you have removed custom cell formatting, you can turn the AutoFilter back on.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was corrected in Microsoft Project 2000, Service Release 1 (SR-1).