Word open slowly while 3party plugin is installed

[Ralf]

Hello,

since a half a year we found following interesting problem with word 2003
while opening a word document on a fileserver and have no solution.

Prerequisits:
- native Windows XP SP2 installation and all security patches
- Office 2003 Professional SP3 and all security patches
- any 3party Word-Plugin; We've tested it with
- PDFMaker-Plugin (Adobe), VIS-Compact-Plugin (PDV) and the International
Character Toolbar-Plugin (Mircosoft)
- We've tested it with a Windows Server 2003 Standard based fileserver and a
NetApp FAS based Fileserver.

Now following SMB network traffic behaviour will occur "only" if you open a
Word-document by the Windows Explorer interface -> e.g. by double click or
"open" by the context menu:

4480 16:23:15.707217 10.96.101.45 10.87.34.199 SMB Trans2 Request,
QUERY_PATH_INFO, Query File Basic Info, Path:
\Software\_Progs\Windows\Installation
4483 16:23:15.721372 10.87.34.199 10.96.101.45 SMB Trans2 Response,
QUERY_PATH_INFO

4484 16:23:15.721485 10.96.101.45 10.87.34.199 SMB Trans2 Request,
QUERY_PATH_INFO, Query File Basic Info, Path:
\Software\_Progs\Windows\Installation
4485 16:23:15.735547 10.87.34.199 10.96.101.45 SMB Trans2 Response,
QUERY_PATH_INFO
(this is an excerpt by Wireshark -
sequencno,time,source,destination,smb-request)

Depending on which plugin is installed you'll have the same SMB-request in
this manner 30 to 250 times in average. We measerud also values of hundrets
of the same SMB request. After then a document will be opened. This behavior
cause a lot of unnessessary network traffic and an opening process can take
several minutes! (max measured value is about 25min)

We have about 1000 employees, ~800 people work over LAN and about ~200 work
over WAN on different locations.

Does anybody have seen this strange behavior too or similar experience?

Thanks for anticipation!

 

[Stefan Blom]

I have no information about network traffic, but note that at least some
versions of Adobe Acrobat cause other issues with Word; see
http://www.gmayor.com/lose_that_adobe_acrobat_toolbar.htm.

 

[Ralf]

Thanks for your answer!

The problem exists if at least one 3party plugin is installed.
It still exists independet of the Adobe PDFMaker-Plugin.
We knew about the Adobe PDF-Maker-Plugin in case of using word templates
with embedded macros.

The behavior I've described in my post occurs just when opening a word
document with the Windows Explorer (double click or context-menu 'open'). If
you open a word document with the OpenFile-dialog in Word the SMB-network
traffic does not occur.

 

[Stefan Blom]

Uninstall plug-ins one by one until you find the one that does cause the
problem. See also
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProblemsStartingWord.htm.

 

[Ralf]

At first, thanks a lot for your assistance!!!

I know about the article you've posted to me "ProblemsStartingWord.html".

Now, the strange thing is that any plugin I have installed causes the heavy
SMB-requests. So if all plugins are deinstalled, you won't have the heavy
SMB-requests.
But if at least one plugin is installed you'll have the heavy SMB-requests.

So every plugin I mentioned in my first post cause the failure. We tested
explicit an original microsoft plugin and it causes the same behavior.

I know about following articles:
KB322345,KB328237,KB829700,KB830561,KB830903,KB831129,KB840309,KB840309,KB894463,KB905890,KB918334,KB936596,
ms-technet-20080624-improving-network-performance-when-users-access-officexp-2k3-docs.doc

 

[Stefan Blom]

Sorry, I have no more suggestions. :-(

You could try asking in a VBA or developer newsgroup for more knowledgeable
assistance.

--
Stefan Blom
Microsoft Word MVP

At first, thanks a lot for your assistance!!!

I know about the article you've posted to me "ProblemsStartingWord.html".

Now, the strange thing is that any plugin I have installed causes the
heavy
SMB-requests. So if all plugins are deinstalled, you won't have the heavy
SMB-requests.
But if at least one plugin is installed you'll have the heavy
SMB-requests.

So every plugin I mentioned in my first post cause the failure. We tested
explicit an original microsoft plugin and it causes the same behavior.

I know about following articles:
KB322345,KB328237,KB829700,KB830561,KB830903,KB831129,KB840309,KB840309,KB894463,KB905890,KB918334,KB936596,
ms-technet-20080624-improving-network-performance-when-users-access-officexp-2k3-docs.doc