Office documents opening very slowly

[Guest]

Office documents (Word, Excel, PPT) are opening very slowly (1-2 minutes or
more) on my PC when I open them by double clicking an icon in a folder or on
the desktop. If I open the application first and then open the document
using the File -> Open menu the document opens very quickly.

I'm using McAfee antivirus software and have found no settings that seem to
affect the problem. (I noticed that Norton was causing a similar problem for
some people.) I even turned McAfee virus scan off completely and still had
the problem.

I've cleaned up and tuned everything I can think of. Any ideas?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Office documents (Word, Excel, PPT) are opening very slowly (1-2
minutes or more) on my PC when I open them by double clicking an icon
in a folder or on the desktop. If I open the application first and
then open the document using the File -> Open menu the document opens
very quickly.

I'm using McAfee antivirus software and have found no settings that
seem to affect the problem. (I noticed that Norton was causing a
similar problem for some people.) I even turned McAfee virus scan
off completely and still had the problem.

I've cleaned up and tuned everything I can think of. Any ideas?

Office what?
System Specs?

 

[Guest]

Office XP Professional (2002)
Windows XP Home Edition, SP2
Dell 2.6 GHz Pentium IV with 512 MB RAM

To clarify... This is a recent problem. Until a month or two ago office
documents would open very quickly.

 

[Guest]

Hi

I had exactly the same problem. Then I monitored what's happening, when I
double-click the file.
I found out that the problem was Microsoft Antispyware beta1 (one of the
first release)
After deactivating Antispyware everything was fine.

 

[stevem]

Hi

I had exactly the same problem. Then I monitored what's happening, when I
double-click the file.
I found out that the problem was Microsoft Antispyware beta1 (one of the
first release)
After deactivating Antispyware everything was fine.

I also use Office XP Professional, plus MS Anti-Spyware, and most assuredly
do not have this problem. What, exactly, made you think this was the
problem?

Steve.

Office XP Professional (2002)
XP Home SP2
AntiSpyware Beta1 Version 1.0.509
P4 3.4, 2 GB ram

 

[Shenan Stanley]

Office documents (Word, Excel, PPT) are opening very slowly (1-2
minutes or more) on my PC when I open them by double clicking an icon
in a folder or on the desktop. If I open the application first and
then open the document using the File -> Open menu the document opens
very quickly.
I'm using McAfee antivirus software and have found no settings that
seem to affect the problem. (I noticed that Norton was causing a
similar problem for some people.) I even turned McAfee virus scan
off completely and still had the problem.

I've cleaned up and tuned everything I can think of. Any ideas?

Office what?
System Specs?

Office XP Professional (2002)
Windows XP Home Edition, SP2
Dell 2.6 GHz Pentium IV with 512 MB RAM

To clarify... This is a recent problem. Until a month or two ago
office documents would open very quickly.

I had exactly the same problem. Then I monitored what's happening,
when I double-click the file.
I found out that the problem was Microsoft Antispyware beta1 (one of
the first release)
After deactivating Antispyware everything was fine.

I also use Office XP Professional, plus MS Anti-Spyware, and most
assuredly do not have this problem. What, exactly, made you think
this was the problem?

Let me assure everyone now..

Just because something worked/did not work on your machine does not mean
that for the billions of other similar (but not exact usually)
configurations the reactions will/will not be the same. If there is
anything I hate hearing more it's, "But it worked on my machine.."

Wally,

When you first noticed the problem, what had you just done? Any
software/hardware installs? What about patches from Microsoft of hardware
drivers? Did you try to restore to a date prior to when you had the issue
(remember - system restore is made for the system files, not yours - so it
will undo changes made to the system - not your files.)

You've seemed to center around McAfee - was that a recent change? Did you
uninstall some software to put McAfee on?

Have you tried a different user? If you don't have multiple users - now's
the time to make one.. Create the user, logoff as your normal user and
logon as the new user.. Are things faster? (Make it the same security level
as your current user.)

When you say you have cleaned up and tuned everything you can think of..
Does that mean..

- Visiting office.microsoft.com and 'checking for updates' and installing
any and all that are there for your Office XP.
- Uninstalling any software that you installed just before noticing the
issue(and rebooting before testing.)
- Used some antivirus other than that installed on your system - like an
online scanner - to scan and check for viruses/trojans.
- Used several different antispyware applications (uninstalled old versions,
checked for new versions, downloaded and installed them and updated their
definitions, scanned and immunized with (where applicable) these things -
performing FULL system scans - not just "smart" or "quick" scans.
- Checked Add/Remove Programs for applications I could remove because of
non-use or simply finding some not installed by yourself.
- Checked running processes to see if anything is taking up an extraordinary
amount of resources.
- Tried System Restore back to a point before the problem started (may not
be an option after this long..)
- After trying System Restore (and it failing/not being a viable solution) -
turning off system restore, rebooting, turning it back on to clear up the
system restore points.
- Checking the event logs for any issues that may be occuring.
- After doing all the above and still getting no results - checking the hard
disk drive for errors/problems using CHKDSK.
- After all the above and still (still..) getting no results - defragmenting
the hard disk drive.

That would be everything I would likely do to troubleshoot initially. If at
that point it was still not working properly, I would uninstall Office XP
and reboot and use the installation media (DON'T EVEN UNINSTALL UNLESS YOU
HAVE THE MEDIA AND THE KEY AVAILABLE TO YOU) to reinstall and then patch
from http://office.microsoft.com/ (Check for Updates) before trying to see
if it fixed my issues.

 

[Guest]

I looked at McAfee only because I found documentation of a similar problem
with Norton on the Microsoft site (and in many other places).

I have tried all of these recommendations except the system restore (I'm not
real sure when this problem started) and reinstalling Office XP. Guess the
reinstall may have to be the next step.

 

[Guest]

Hi stevem

I don't say that this problem must exist. Many of my friends have the same
image on their notebooks and they didn't have the problem with antispyware. I
just wanted to give a hint... that maybe there is a problem.

I monitored all of the file activity when I open a word document by
double-clicking the file. (with Filemon from sysinternals) Then I saw, that
before word tried to open that document; antispyware handled it. So I
deactivated antispyware and afterwards the double-click-word-file-opening was
as fast as normal.

 

[stevem]

Let me assure everyone now..

Just because something worked/did not work on your machine does not mean
that for the billions of other similar (but not exact usually)
configurations the reactions will/will not be the same. If there is
anything I hate hearing more it's, "But it worked on my machine.."

Shenan,

I completely agree with you - perhaps I could have worded my response rather
more appropriately, but the reason I responded as I did was precisely to try
to avoid a situation where inappropriate advice might cause the OP to do
something which might actually harm his system (not the case here, of
course, but I think you know what I mean). That's why I specifically asked
PebKaC to clarify just exactly how he came to this conclusion. I see he has
now done so, but I would expect MS AntiSpyware to check the document, so no
real answer there.

Steve.

 

[Guest]

No real answer - yes, I agree.
But I had this problem and I searched for a solution for around 3 to 4
hours....
And don't forget that antispyware is only a BETA at the moment...
Yes! It's normal that antispyware must check the documents.. but not so
slowly that a document needs around 20-30 seconds (in my case) when I open it
by double-click...
So.. I just want to give a hint... something to try.. nothing that can harm
the system of Wally... something that can be done with 2 clicks... and
something that only needs 30 seconds to try...

 

[stevem]

No real answer - yes, I agree.
But I had this problem and I searched for a solution for around 3 to 4
hours....
And don't forget that antispyware is only a BETA at the moment...
Yes! It's normal that antispyware must check the documents.. but not so
slowly that a document needs around 20-30 seconds (in my case) when I open
it
by double-click...
So.. I just want to give a hint... something to try.. nothing that can
harm
the system of Wally... something that can be done with 2 clicks... and
something that only needs 30 seconds to try...

PebKaC,

I think this is getting out of hand! Sorry, I'm not implying any criticism -
you are perfectly correct to point out that this solved your problem. I was
simply hoping that you may have spotted something else which might explain
why AntiSpyware was apparently causing the hang-up (probably a combination
of that and some other application). I personally have AntiSpyware and
McAfee; the OP mentioned McAfee; so I didn't expect any problem there. Why
can't Windows have something like the good old Unix 'truss' command? That
used to get me out of so much trouble when supporting Unix...

Steve.

 

[Guest]

ok.. sure.. why don't just try to monitor the activity to find out what is
going on during opening by double-clicking:
download filemon and regmon at www.sysinternals.com
then monitor everything what's going on when you double-click a
word-document...
don't forget to freeze the output in the monitor-tool when the file is open...
how about that?

and try it with a blank word-document; so you don't have links or anything
like that...

 

[stevem]

ok.. sure.. why don't just try to monitor the activity to find out what is
going on during opening by double-clicking:
download filemon and regmon at www.sysinternals.com
then monitor everything what's going on when you double-click a
word-document...
don't forget to freeze the output in the monitor-tool when the file is
open...
how about that?

and try it with a blank word-document; so you don't have links or anything
like that...

PebKaC,
Many thanks; I had not come across those utilities. I have now downloaded
and tried them; I can see I'm going to have to play with them for a while,
to establish which filters I need to apply, but there is definite promise
there! Maybe at last, I can finally get some idea why Asus PC Probe is
haemorrhaging GDI objects!

Steve.