NVDA is enforced to use UIA whenever focussing a MS Word document or MS Outlook message Window although this is explicitly turned to "only when necessary" in NVDA advanced settings

[Adriani90]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open NVDA
2. In Advaced settings, set uIA for MS Word to "only when necessary"
3. Open an mS Word document or a message window in MS Outlook
4. Add some blank lines and Create a table with some rows and columns
5. Fill some cells with content so the test results become obvious later on
6. Press alt+tab twice to change to another window and back to the Outlook message window or MS Word document
7. Press ctrl+up and down arrow to navigate to the table
8. Press nvda+n to open NVDA menu, and then press escape. Alternatively, just ofpen the ribbon with alt and press escape to close it.
   9.1. Repeat step 7
   9.2. After pressing escape to close NVDA menu or the ribbon, press alt+tab

Actual behavior:

• In step 7, NVDA reads the whole table on ctrl+down arrow, this is the behavior when UIA is enabled. And there are lots of other undesired effects stemming from UIA.
• In step 9.1, NVDA reads only the focussed cell and its content, this is the behavior when UIA is set to "only necessary".
• In step 9.2, when in an outlook message window, NVDA does not change to another window but tries to get focus back to Outlook although the focus is already there. In the log it seems NVDA has huge amount of events after pressing alt+tab, Windows explorer and XAML chime in unexpectedly and NVDA fails to convert foregroung window.

This back and forth with UIA happens every time when changing between windows with alt+tab, and I must always open and close NVDA menu in order to make it work as expected.

Expected behavior:

UIA setting in advanced settings of NVDA should be respected, and there should not be so many focus event when pressing alt+tab after step 8. NVDA should be able to convert the foreground window as expected because it should not use UIA.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

nvda_UIA-enforcement.txt

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

Installed

NVDA version:

Version: alpha-36938,7776fcOO (2025.2.0.36938)

Windows version:

Windows 11 24 H2

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

Microsoft Office 365 version 2505 build 16.0.18827.20102) 64 Bit

Other information about your system:

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

yes

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

earlier versions did not have this behavior, but it could have started with an MS office update.

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

no add-ons in use

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

yes

[Adriani90]

cc: @josephsl, @michaelDCurran, @gerald-hartig this is quite annoying and has a huge impact in my case, since NVDA reacts different to lots of situations when using UIA compared to when it's off. There is a very detailed discussion on this in #16600

I suspect that in some cases this change back and forth between UIA while focusing the window cause performance issues after a while. There are huge amount of events in the log, sometimes in the log it says that NVDA reached the event limit for the coresponding thread.

[seanbudd]

Is this still an issue for you @Adriani90 ?

[Adriani90]

This is unfortunately still an issue with Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2507 Build 16.0.19029.20136) 64 Bit.

It causes lots of undesired effects, e.g. freezing behavior of NVDA when a large table is accessed via ctrl+up and down arrow. In this particular case, when UIA is enforced, NVDA reads the whole table when presing ctrl+up and down arrow. When using objectModel, NVDA reads only a paragraph of text within the focused cell which is the expected behavior.
Also when UIA is enforced, diagrams are not navigable, etc.
And still the open issues documented in #16600 regarding UIA are still valid.

[michaelDCurran]

I am unable to reproduce this. Every time the document gets focus, it is correctly using IAccessible / object model, as set by NvDA's advanced settings.
Also, even when using UIA, I do not see NVDA reading the entire table with control+downArrow. It reads by paragraph with in the table as expected.
There seems to be something very different between our two systems.
Finally, you say that there were no add-ons in use. Unfortunately, your log contradicts this. Please test this with add-ons completely disabled.

[Adriani90]

@michaelDCurran I tested this thoroughly again on two different systems, and I am not sure whether this is something enforced through Microsoft Office. It is really difficult to check in the NVDA settings whether the setting value in advaced settings is really affected, because as soon as you open the NVDA menu, the UIA related behavior is turned off and object model is enabled instead. But the behavior definitely changes as described in the issue description on both systems, Windows 10 and Windows 11, both with the newest updates of MS office 365 version 207.
It happens in MS Word much more reliable than in MS Outlook.
I found following way to prove that NVDA changes its behavior to UIA when opening a new document or Outlook message:

• Open NVDA and enable "single line break" for paragraph navigation in document navigation settings.
• Then repeat steps 2-9.2 in the original issue description.
  • When UIA behavior is enabled, single line break paragraph navigation works as expected (NVDA also reports "no next" or "no previous paragraph" at the bottom or top of the document).
  • When Object model is enabled, single break paragraph navigation does not work, and paragraph navigation is handled by the application. NVDA repeats the last or the first paragraph when pressing ctrl+down or ctrl+up arrow at the bottom or top of the document.

The issue with NVDA reading the whole table on pressing ctrl+up and down arrow seems to happen when single break paragraph navigation is used, but not when paragraph navigation is handled by the application.

This has been somehow discussed also in #13704, but now since some weeks thze behavior has become much more aggressive.

[michaelDCurran]

From your descriptions I definitely agree and believe you that UIA is being used for MS Word documents in this scenario. But, I am genuinely still unable to reproduce this unfortunately. Can you please set your log level to debug, and turn on UIA in debugg logging in NVDA's advanced settings. Then reproduce the issue and provide me with the log. Make sure in the log you reproduce your paragraph moving test, both with object model and accidental UIA. Thanks.

[Adriani90]

Hey mick, thanks for the quick follow-up. here is the log in debug mode, add-ons disabled, and UIA as well as events enabled in the logging categories. Hope this helps.

nvda_MS-UIA.txt

[michaelDCurran]

Oh, now I understand. You have a config profile for MS Word. And you have set use UIA in MS Word within that profile to Only where necessary, but your global setting is default (where suitable). The limitation here is that when focus switches to MS Word from somewhere else, NVDA is not yet using the MS Word config profile when the relevant MSAA / UIA events come in, and therefore the global config is read, rather than the MS Word config when making some initial decisions about whether to use UIA. Architectually this will be very complex to fix if not impossible. Really that uIA setting should be global, not per profile unfortunately. Some workarounds: * When focusing MS Word, move focus one more time within the app, such as moving to/from the ribbon or context menu, so that the UIA/MSAA focus events pick up the now loaded config profile. Or * Set UIA in MS word to Only when Necessary globally, not just in the MS Word config profile.