Outlook 2016 While typing in outlook the application boots you out of the editor, forces mouse click

[nao1471]

Good Morning,

I wanted to ask the community on this rather annoying issue. 
We have about 50 end users that use HP Elitebook G3/4/5/6 laptops with intel chipsets, loaded with 8GB/16 GB of ram configurations. All of them have the same issue.

We also have about 100 Desktops - HP Elitedesk 800G3/4 (there isn't this issue)

All the laptop users share the same issue. The configuration is:

Laptop, Ultraslim Dock

External HP or MS keyboard.

Some users have bluetooth, wireless mouse with dongle, and majority with a wired USB mouse

Extended desktop with Laptop as primary screen, and two additional screens in extended.

The end users report that when you send a new message/reply to a message they will be typing and randomly the keyboard will just stop registering keys as if you "clicked" out of the application. End user will need to click back into the editor and it happens on repeat.

If you undock, and use the laptop keyboard, it happens much less and is usable.

We have tried the following settings/steps:

Disabled touchpad

Disabled touchpad when external mouse is present (usually wired USB)

Set sensitivity while typing to lowest 

Removed Anti virus

Disabled Additional Mouse properties where it'll force the cursor to be available while typing

Disabled enhance pointer precision

Disabled touch screen (if the unit has it)

Updated to latest bios, different video drivers, mouse drivers that are available.

Tried different fonts.

Disabled and enabled clear type

Tried O365 instead of O2016 32 bit on problem users

Tried undocking and not using the dock at all

Updated Windows 10 1809 to 1909 with the newest and latest drivers. (fresh image)

I feel the same issue will happen in windows 2004 when its available to download on these model straight from the MS update.

Contact HP and they wanted us to ship the unit for HW diagnostic (which passes anyways) Happens on G3/G4/G5/G6 elitebook models.

We are ordering a different USB-C/thunderbolt dock to test just to test. (we are hopeful its own driver sets etc make it work normally)

I am sure there other minor steps we didn't try.... But we are hoping someone in the community has experienced this, and can provide good feedback. Will post in HP forum as well.

Again, it doesn't happen with the exact same software we use in our desktops.

Any help would be appreciated.

Nicholas

[WAWood]

@nao1471 

I'm sorry no one responded before this, and I have not personally used these docking stations -- but my general experience with such items is that they work poorly, when at all!  The older business PCs that I used had proprietary docking stations connectors, instead of using USB ports, and those worked great!  I used Dell, HP, and Fujitsu docking stations and ran into absolutely no problems with any of them.

But we get posts here virtually every day of folks using these USB -connected docking stations complaining about things that don't work.  The performance tends to be better, and the problems fewer, if the USB cables and ports are USB 3.1.  As those degrade to USB 3 and USB 2, the performance drops off and the problems increase.

Your desktops appear to have no issues -- and they are also NOT using the docking stations.

You mentioned that the situation improves a lot when you disconnect the docking station and use only the laptop.

Those all tend to indicate the docking stations are at the heart of the problems.

I didn't use these docking stations but I did use others with other laptops some years back when I worked remotely, and the experience I has was that the Dell laptops with integrated docks worked just fine, while the HP laptops with the USB-connected docks had lots of problems.

Certainly trying a different one will yield possibly better results, but you're still going to be interfacing via a USB cable between the laptop and the dock and that has its own issues.

[nao1471]

No Worries.  Not a lot of organizations have this particular issue.

Yes, The docking station seems to be the isolated thing and those particular branded laptops (all with intel i5/i7 chipsets.)
We have purchased a 120W Thunderbolt Docking station that works with the G5/G6 model and will give it a go with its driver sets. If the end user stops complaining about this mouse behavior it would be amazing. Just means that we would need to order another 30 of them if we were 100% sure it goes away. I suspect they released these special docks (that cost double) and have better drivers/watts available. I also suspect QA testing and other items are non existent with the old dock.

We also updated a couple of machines to windows 10 build 2004 and tweaked some mouse settings (disabled bluetooth, touch pad tweaks and touch screen disabled)

Will update if it works.