You are not crazy, and you are not imagining things. The behavior you are describing is real, and it is a direct result of a change in how your new laptop's version of Excel handles merged cells when you select a row by its number. For years, your old setup allowed you to right-click the row number, hit delete, and watch the merged area shrink cleanly, leaving the rest of your sheet intact. That was not a dream. That was a feature, and it worked. Now, on your new machine, the same action selects the entire merged block, and the delete command either does nothing or removes more than you intended. That is not a failure on your part. That is a difference in how the software is interpreting your click.
Here is what is actually happening: when you click a row number, you are not just selecting a row. You are telling Excel to treat that entire row as a single unit. If that row contains a merged cell that spans multiple rows, Excel now prioritizes the merged cell's structure over your intent to delete a single row. The old behavior you remember, where the merged area shrank to match the remaining rows, was a quirk of an earlier version or a specific setting configuration. The new behavior is stricter. It refuses to partially delete a merged region when you select from the row header, because it does not want to leave you with a broken or inconsistent merge. That is why right-clicking an unmerged cell first, then choosing "delete," and then selecting "entire row" works. That path bypasses the row header selection entirely and gives Excel a clearer instruction: delete this row, not this merged block.
This is not a dead end, and it is not a reason to abandon your workflow. The practical fix is simple, even if it is not obvious. When you need to delete a row that intersects a merged cell, do not click the row number. Instead, click any unmerged cell in that row, right-click, choose "Delete," and then select "Entire row." That two-step process preserves the merged areas and shrinks them correctly, just like you are used to. It is an extra click, but it is reliable, and it works consistently across versions. You can also check your Excel options for "Transition navigation keys" or "After pressing Enter, move selection," but those are unlikely to change this behavior. The real lesson here is that your new laptop is not broken, and neither are you. The software changed its default behavior, and once you understand that, you can adapt without losing your mind or your data.
The deeper point is this: when a tool changes its behavior without telling you, it feels like gaslighting. But the answer is rarely that you are wrong. It is that the tool has a different rule now. You have been using this sheet for years, and you know exactly what it should do. Trust that. Then find the path that gets you there, even if it is not the one you used before. You do not need to relearn your entire workflow. You just need to adjust one step. And once you do, you will be back to moving through your rows with the same confidence you had before the laptop swap. That is not a workaround. That is just how it works now.