Office 2003 - Browser Freezes Accessing Microsoft Web

[Don]

Long time Office user and recently upgraded to Office
2003. All is fine except those items/menu options
requiring access to Microsoft.com. Internet Explorer
opens, but fails to access the requisite web page...in
fact the address window remains blank. This happens in
all Office Applications, except Excel (for whatever
reason). Anyone run into this problem? More
importantly, anyone with this problem able to fix it?

Any help would be appreciated.

Don

 

[Orrie]

I use Opera 7.23 as my default browser and each time Office 2003 accesses
the web, it tells me I need to use IE, then Opera crashes (which it rarely
does otherwise). If I open IE 6 first with Opera closed, and *then* access
the web with Office 2003, it uses IE, which then runs very slowly. Pages
seem to hang for several seconds, before completing their loading. Mind you,
these are pages in the Office online Help system.

I can understand that Microsoft designed Office 2003 to work with its own
browser, Internet Explorer, but it would nice if the Office/IE combination
worked more competently, since Office keeps sending me to the web for
routine Help questions. It would be even nicer if I could use Opera instead
of doddering around with IE 6.

Is there some way to improve the performance of Office 2003 with IE, and
ideally to have it work other browsers, such as Opera?

Orrie