AutoCAD 2015 and 2016 Mechanical Locks Up When Global Search & Replace is Run

I'm running AutoCAD 2016 Mechanical on a computer at my office. Whenever I run the Find and Replace to change text in the drawing, AutoCAD completely locks up. I have to use Task Manager to stop it. The old copy of 2015 is also still on this computer because the IT guys never got around to uninstalling it yet. So I thought great, let's try it there...and the same thing happens. So I went to another co-worker's desktop and hers is fine.

The OS is Windows 7 Pro with all the latest updates and patches. AutoCAD has also been updated with the latest Svc Packs, etc... There was a time when this did not happen on my computer. The way I would resolve it is to blast away the drive and reinstall the OS and AutoCAD. But the IT folks say no way they are going to do that. So I'm stumped trying to find out what registry key or dll file went south on me.