All Office 2003 apps slow

[koos]

Hallo,

Users are experiencing slow performance when opening, editing or saving
files. Usually when they type in a name in the "Save As" box, the text
appears later. In MS Excel, when typing in a tabel, the same delay when
typing appears.
I have a Windows 2003 environment. Clients use Windows XP SP1 with Office
2003. The users have roaming profiles. The "Application Data" and "Desktop"
of the users are redirected with "Folder Redirection" in a GPO which are
automatically made available as "offline folders". The "My Documents" folder
does not roam with the userprofile (added to exclusion list). The antivirus
software is Mcafee On Access 7.5. At logon, the clients receive a mapped
folder to a server named "Critical Data" which is encrypted with EFS. Users
only uses this folder for critical data. All the other documents are saved
locally on their machine in the My Documents folder.
It's difficult to see where the problem really occurs. CPU or Network use is
not high and memory is OK.
I don't know if this has to do with the Recent Folder in Office or anything
else.
Do any of you have a suggestion. Your help will be appreciated.

Koos.

 

[johnny]

I am experiencing the exact same problem and the situation is sensibly the
same. I suspect that it has to do with rights. Did you remove to some of
theese users rights to certain network directories where they might have
worked before ?

Also tested removal of the anti virus wich didn't solved the problem.

Any success on your side ?

 

[beans]

Hi We are having the same problem with similar setup. This problem is
only with office though, and is user profile specific.
Still working on it and will get back if i find a solution

 

[johnny]

After extensive research I foud that in fact it is related to Office dialog
boxes and it seems to be also linked to the file off line files. Some
machines here do not use offline files and theese don't have this problem.
Another MICROSOFT BUG THAT WILL PROBABELY NEVER BE RESOLVED !

 

[beans]

Just have found that when we removed all files from recent folder in
folderredirection\username\application data\microsoft\office\recent.
the problem went away.
To tired now to carry on to try and scroll though a lot of files to
find out what and why.It seems to be about enumerating through this
recent folder that is causing the delay.

To be continued.......

 

[johnny]

Worked for me fine. Definitely the solution. What and why is not too much of
a concern. As long as it works.

 

[Robert Walker]

I too am experiencing the exact same problem. Having found the MS KB article
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;319470 we thought we
had it licked. What we found was that none of the affected systems had the
inline autocomplete turned on, but clearing the Recent folder did improve
performance. The problem though is as users continue to open various docs,
the problem gradually creeps back until the Recent is flushed again

We do have redirected folders turned on for "application data". We are using
a combination of Office 2000 and Office XP. Seems like the problem doesnt
happen when the OS is 2000Pro but does happen under XPpro (sp1 or sp2).

 

[Johnny]

It is true that the problem keeps comming back. Right now I am triing to find
the origin of this recent folder. Not too sure who creates it and maintains
it. It is obviously part of Office but I do not know how to disable this list
since it is useless. Maybe someone from Microsoft could help here, now is the
time !

 

[beans]

It is true that the problem keeps comming back. Right now I am triing to find
the origin of this recent folder. Not too sure who creates it and maintains
it. It is obviously part of Office but I do not know how to disable this list
since it is useless. Maybe someone from Microsoft could help here, now is the
time !

 

[beans]

Everyone,

Once the files have been removed from the "Recent" Folder.

Add this in this new entry in registry.
User Key:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
Explorer]
System Key:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\
Explorer]
Value Name: NoRecentDocsHistory
Data Type: REG_DWORD (DWORD Value)
Value Data: (0 = disable restriction, 1 = enable restriction)
This worked for me a treat. No more hassle.

 

[Johnny]

Did you find this in the KB?

 

[Robert Walker]

Does this setting not disable all of the "Recent" entries for applications.
(i.e. the list of files that appears at the bottom of the "file" menu in
applications as well as the "Recent Documents" off the Start button?

Regards,
Rob

 

[beans]

Correct, since then i hae found a better fix.

Change the norecentdocuments to 0

Add the following

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Expl­orer
MaxRecentDocs

Data type Range Default value
REG_DWORD 0x0 - 0xFFFFFFFF shortcuts 0xF (15)
Remember use decimal