BleepingComputer.com: Office files open slowly (Office 2003 / Windows 7)

Hello,

I am running Office 2003 on Windows 7. My PC is only 6 months old and everything has been running like butter. All of a sudden Office files open slowly when double-clicked from their respective locations (they would normally blink up). If I open Word or Excel and then open the files from there, they open quick. Outlook on the other hand, is just slow to load up...which it wasn't before.

I did a ton of research online and couldn't get a clear fix. My thoughts are:
Anti Virus? (I'm using AVG Free)
Ad-Aware Free? (Ad-Watch live is on...however it was on before)
Windows update or office update?

But obviously I'm here to get your thoughts. It's a pain in the ass when I bought a new PC so it could perform quick, and now spreadsheets and email take 20 seconds or more to open.

Openfaced

I just wanted to add that when I disconnect the PC from the internet, the problem seems to go away?

This post has been edited by openfaced: 29 April 2011 - 03:31 PM

check your AVG log to make sure it is clean and scan for malware with malwarebytes at http://www.malwarebytes.org/

may as well get those two issues out of the way first.

I have scanned my PC using AVG, Malwarebytes, Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad-Aware. They all came out clean.

Open Task Manager...open Office file...see what processes increase in CPU/RAM usage.

You might also check and see what unnecessary browser add-ons you have enabled.

Louis

Nothing in the task manager changed from "00" or "01" when I opened an office file. How do I determine what browser add-ons are "unnecessary" and if they are enabled?

do you have mapped network drives ? this seems to be an issue for some with your problem.

if you suspect an update has caused it check Add/Remove programs in Control Panel. check box on top to show updates and see if there are any around when the problem started.

I have my laptop linked in a homegroup, but rarely connect between the two. However, that link has been established for a couple of months with no problems. Any thoughts on that?

As for updates, it looks like an update to Google toolbar for IE and an update to Adobe Reader were around the dates this started to happen. How do I "undo" the updates? Do I uninstall and reinstall?

Thank you for helping.

when searching for slow opening word docs at microsoft it led me to this troubleshooting page http://support.microsoft.com/kb/921541

this was also interesting as it mentions google toolbar, similar situation as yours and more things to try. more kb articles linked to here also.
http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1479079&page=6

this guy blames Kodak EasyShare, do you have that program ?
http://www.pbcomp.com.au/office-documents-slow-to-open.html

do you have a network printer installed as default ? this from another forum.

Did you find a solution? I was having the same issue. I am on vacation connected to the wireless at the resort. If I disconnected, Word and Excel files open fine (both 2003 and 2007). Otherwise, they would take 10-15 minutes -- no matter how I access them (from Windows Explorer, form the program, etc.). Powerpoint was unaffected. I "disconnected" from my mapped network drives, deleted the "recently opened files" lists, etc., but the only thing I could do to open the files quickly was to disconnect from the wireless network here.

The solution was to set Adobe PDF as default printer -- because my default printer was a printer on my home network. Even though I was not trying to print, Excel and Word were apparently trying very hard to connect to to my network printer.

I tried uninstalling Google Toolbar, since that was the update around the beginning of the issues...it made no difference.

I have definately verified that the issue does not happen when I am disconnected from the internet. When I unplug my wireless router, every Office program opens very quickly. When I reconnect to the internet, it goes back to opening slowly. So each Office program must be using the internet when it's opening.

I also don't know if I mentioned this in a previous post, but it's slow when I open it the first time, but then if I close it and open it again, it's very fast. And it stays like that for a few minutes, but if I try and open it again in a couple of minutes, it's slow again. It's almost like it's cached or something?

I really appreciate you helping,

openfaced

found another possible culprit : Windows Defender.. do you have that running ?

I do not have Windows Defender on my PC.

it seems that it is looking for a network resource. ie mapped drive, network share.
does it work when computers in homegroup are on ?
do you connect at work or any other network ?