Outlook 2003 slow to show emails

[newhorizon1]

I've posted this before, and didn't receive a response, so I'm really hoping
someone can help me out here.

I use Outlook 2003 SP3 on XP SP3 with POP3 accounts. The program takes
forever to show html emails in the preview pane, even locking up for what
seems like an eternity, often showing just a blank screen with Outlook 2003
Not Responding in the blue title bar. After a minute or two it goes back to
normal and shows me the email.

I've disabled the email scanner in AVG 8.0 and I've shut down my Comodo
Firewall Pro and am using just the native Windows firewall. None of this
seems to help. The problem is worse when I first startup Outlook and it seems
to get better, until I shut down again. I suspected it was something scanning
the mails, and learning them, and that's why it got better over time. I've
added all senders to the safe senders list. Still no luck.

Any ideas what's going on?
Thanks!

 

[Jocelyn Fiorello]

Try opening Outlook in Safe Mode, which disables all add-ins, and see if the
same problem occurs. Click the Windows Start button, click Run, then type in
the box "outlook.exe /safe" (without the quotes).

 

[newhorizon1]

Hi Jocelyn,

That didn't fix it either. It still hangs up. It's almost as if the emails
weren't actually downloaded and stored on the local machine, but instead have
to be downloaded or refreshed from somewhere each time I click on them. Or, a
program is checking the links or something like that. My Comodo is off and
the email scanning in AVG is off. Is there another such program that could be
causing the bottleneck?

Any other ideas?
Thanks so much!

 

[Jocelyn Fiorello]

What method did you use to disable the e-mail scanning? With some programs,
the only way to REALLY disable it is to uninstall the AV program and
reinstall it without e-mail scanning enabled.

 

[newhorizon1]

On the advice of the folks on the support forums at AVG, I disabled the
Add-in for it through the Add-in manager in Outlook.

Is there a better way?

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

On the advice of the folks on the support forums at AVG, I disabled the
Add-in for it through the Add-in manager in Outlook.

Better still is to uninstall AVG completely, then reinstall without the mail
scanning feature.

 

[newhorizon1]

I've done as you suggested - uninstalling AVG completely. Still no change,
very slow to show emails.

Any other ideas?

 

[newhorizon1]

I continue to struggle with this slow-to-show problem. I have since ditched
AVG free and I am in day 10 of a 30 day free trial of Norton AV 2009. There
has been no change in the speed at which my emails display - no faster, no
slower.

I've used my Office 2003 disk to "repair" my installation of the programs,
but that has made no change either.

I'm tempted to uninstall Outlook and reinstall it again. Might this help?
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. This is seriously cutting into my
productivity.

Thanks.