Intermittent slowness in Office programs

[Matthew Harris [MVP]]

I'm having a problem on a new Windows Server 2003 system where Word, Excel,
and Powerpoint all startup slow quite often. Double-clicking to startup
Word, for instance, results in about 15 seconds of no activity on the server,
followed by a quick startup of the program. If I try this again, the delay
will sometimes be there and sometimes not (the program may or may not have a
delay before it starts). I read a ton of newsgroup archives as well as other
Usenet posts, but to no avail. I thought it might be the printer, so I
removed all printers that were mapped in my current profile but no luck
there. Any ideas?

Any ideas?

 

[Thomas Wohlgemuth]

Matthew Harris wrote

I'm having a problem on a new Windows Server 2003 system where Word,
Excel,
and Powerpoint all startup slow quite often. Double-clicking to startup
Word, for instance, results in about 15 seconds of no activity on the
server,
followed by a quick startup of the program. If I try this again, the
delay
will sometimes be there and sometimes not (the program may or may not have
a
delay before it starts). I read a ton of newsgroup archives as well as
other
Usenet posts, but to no avail. I thought it might be the printer, so I
removed all printers that were mapped in my current profile but no luck
there. Any ideas?

Any ideas?

Hello

we have the same problems at a lots of clients. Causes by process CTFMON.
This is the service for alternative input (speak, handwrite) for office. If
you stop the process by kill or in the task manager delay of the office
programs are not still exist. But the problem is each office program restart
the process if it is not running.
Deinstall this feature if stop of CTFMON has the same result on your server.

Thomas

 

[Matthew Harris [MVP]]

Matthew Harris wrote

Hello

we have the same problems at a lots of clients. Causes by process CTFMON.
This is the service for alternative input (speak, handwrite) for office. If
you stop the process by kill or in the task manager delay of the office
programs are not still exist. But the problem is each office program restart
the process if it is not running.
Deinstall this feature if stop of CTFMON has the same result on your server.

Thomas

Thanks for the quick reply. I should have also mentioned that I'm running
Office 2003 as well. I tried removing CTFMON (using the information at
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=282599) but it turns out it
wasn't ever installed. I played around with it some more, but the pause was
still there. Any other ideas?

-M

 

[Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]]

Do you have disconnected mapped drives on which files are stored? Try
unmapping them if yes.

--
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After furious head scratching, Matthew Harris [MVP] asked:

| "Thomas Wohlgemuth" wrote:
|
|| Matthew Harris wrote
||| I'm having a problem on a new Windows Server 2003 system where Word,
||| Excel,
||| and Powerpoint all startup slow quite often. Double-clicking to
||| startup Word, for instance, results in about 15 seconds of no
||| activity on the server,
||| followed by a quick startup of the program. If I try this again,
||| the delay
||| will sometimes be there and sometimes not (the program may or may
||| not have a
||| delay before it starts). I read a ton of newsgroup archives as
||| well as other
||| Usenet posts, but to no avail. I thought it might be the printer,
||| so I removed all printers that were mapped in my current profile
||| but no luck there. Any ideas?
|||
||| Any ideas?
||
|| Hello
||
|| we have the same problems at a lots of clients. Causes by process
|| CTFMON. This is the service for alternative input (speak, handwrite)
|| for office. If you stop the process by kill or in the task manager
|| delay of the office programs are not still exist. But the problem is
|| each office program restart the process if it is not running.
|| Deinstall this feature if stop of CTFMON has the same result on your
|| server.
||
|| Thomas
|
| Thanks for the quick reply. I should have also mentioned that I'm
| running Office 2003 as well. I tried removing CTFMON (using the
| information at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=282599)
| but it turns out it wasn't ever installed. I played around with it
| some more, but the pause was still there. Any other ideas?
|
| -M

 

[Matthew Harris [MVP]]

Nope. Just a mapped drive for my home drive (which also stores my profile).

-M

 

[Matthew Harris [MVP]]

I don't know if anyone is still following this thread, but I found the
solution...

After playing around with this for a while I realized that this did not
affect the administrator, but the permissions for files and registry
keys/values were the same. I had a thought that it might be the group
policies, since I have restricted user policies that only affect normal users
and not admins. Sure enough, upon removing my test user from the restricted
group policy the intermittent slow downs vanished. In playing with my group
policies I realized that the policy templates for Office had somehow become
unloaded from my group policies. Don't know why this happened, but after
loading the templates back up and redoing my Office, Word, Powerpoint, and
Excel settings, things went back to normal.

My only thought is that somehow Office was trying to reference the policy
templates and when it couldn't find them (and the settings) it was timing out
(hence the delay). Maybe this makes sense, maybe it doesn't, but all I know
is that the delays are gone.

Hope this helps someone...

-M

Nope. Just a mapped drive for my home drive (which also stores my profile).

-M

Do you have disconnected mapped drives on which files are stored? Try
unmapping them if yes.

--Â
Milly Staples [MVP - Outlook]

Post all replies to the group to keep the discussion intact. Due to
the (insert latest virus name here) virus, all mail sent to my personal
account will be deleted without reading.

After furious head scratching, Matthew Harris [MVP] asked:

| "Thomas Wohlgemuth" wrote:
|
|| Matthew Harris wrote
||| I'm having a problem on a new Windows Server 2003 system where Word,
||| Excel,
||| and Powerpoint all startup slow quite often. Double-clicking to
||| startup Word, for instance, results in about 15 seconds of no
||| activity on the server,
||| followed by a quick startup of the program. If I try this again,
||| the delay
||| will sometimes be there and sometimes not (the program may or may
||| not have a
||| delay before it starts). I read a ton of newsgroup archives as
||| well as other
||| Usenet posts, but to no avail. I thought it might be the printer,
||| so I removed all printers that were mapped in my current profile
||| but no luck there. Any ideas?
|||
||| Any ideas?
||
|| Hello
||
|| we have the same problems at a lots of clients. Causes by process
|| CTFMON. This is the service for alternative input (speak, handwrite)
|| for office. If you stop the process by kill or in the task manager
|| delay of the office programs are not still exist. But the problem is
|| each office program restart the process if it is not running.
|| Deinstall this feature if stop of CTFMON has the same result on your
|| server.
||
|| Thomas
|
| Thanks for the quick reply. I should have also mentioned that I'm
| running Office 2003 as well. I tried removing CTFMON (using the
| information at http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=282599)
| but it turns out it wasn't ever installed. I played around with it
| some more, but the pause was still there. Any other ideas?
|
| -M