Outlook Express momentarily "not responding" opening .doc attachme

[Guest]

I'm on OE 6 running on XPSP2
When opening an Word .doc attachment in OE there's a lengthy (lengthy being
relative to prior experience) delay before the Word doc appears in a window.
Doesn't matter if Word is already open. Doesn't matter if I'm running office
2000 or 2003 (but the problem began when I went on 2003). I uninstalled 2003
and reinstalled 2000 but the problem persists.
I was running IE 6 with auto update and while delusional from waiting for
each attachment to open, I took the download invitation for IE 7 Beta.
Problem persists.
I've deactivated my AV email scanning. I've deleted my temp files. I've
compacted my OE folders. I've even moved everything over to Outlook from OE
and still, the problem persists.
When I watch the Task Manager processes, seconds after I click the
attachment to open, the OE process says "not responding", then about 3-4
seconds later it flips back to running and once Word finishes it's own virus
scanning (HOW? do you disable that!), my document opens.
I've been working this way daily for years and had no problems until the
upgrade to 2003.
I've spent more of my day trying this and trying that than I have doing what
I'm paid to do for a living.... My productivity has tanked as my frustration
and impatience grows.
Any suggestions?

 

[Guest]

Yes, I'm on IE7 Beta 3 now but the problem surfaced while on IE 6 and I'm
using OE to access the attachments. (I don't need the bells & whistles OL
offers and it runs slower than OE in my enviornment)

I'm using Norton AV Internet Security 2005 and update weekly (if not more)
and scan weekly. I disabled Norton for a bit to see if that made a
difference, but I'm the attachments I'm accessing were received when the AV
was active - so perhaps disabling now is moot. I'll check Symantec and see if
they can give me some direction. Any more ideas would be welcome.