slow performance when opening Office 2003 files

[CiceroINFJ]

Team,

Any Office 2003 file I try to open (Word, Excel, Access) or even IE are
sluggish. Once I double-click the file name I get an hour glass and then
after 15 - 30 seconds delay I get a shell of the Office Application (say,
Word) and maybe in another 3 - 5 seconds, I get the contents of the file I am
opening.

I noticed that this behavior begins after I use Access 2003 files which
contain hyperlinks (both to the web and file shares). Restarting a computer
helps but it is not the fastest solution

I tried all the suggestions in this category -

the location of the file makes no difference - Office files open slowly from
various locations on my machine or if opened from a network location
cleared all of my temp files
verified the JetEngine's version, it's the most recent one
ran detect and repair and even (!)
uninstalled and reinstalled the entire Office 2003.

Nothing seems to help. As an FYI - I am getting the same issue now at my
home computer. Both work and home machines are XP Professional and both are
running Office 2003. One has AV and the other does not. Both have firewall
enabled. My home computer is a brand new Toshiba running XP Tablet PC edition
2005. THe work computer is a 1 1/2 year-old HP.

Please help if you have any clues on what is wrong.


Thank you

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

Team,

Any Office 2003 file I try to open (Word, Excel, Access) or even IE
are sluggish. Once I double-click the file name I get an hour glass
and then after 15 - 30 seconds delay I get a shell of the Office
Application (say, Word) and maybe in another 3 - 5 seconds, I get the
contents of the file I am opening.

I noticed that this behavior begins after I use Access 2003 files
which contain hyperlinks (both to the web and file shares).
Restarting a computer helps but it is not the fastest solution

I tried all the suggestions in this category -

the location of the file makes no difference - Office files open
slowly from various locations on my machine or if opened from a
network location
cleared all of my temp files
verified the JetEngine's version, it's the most recent one
ran detect and repair and even (!)
uninstalled and reinstalled the entire Office 2003.

Nothing seems to help. As an FYI - I am getting the same issue now at
my home computer. Both work and home machines are XP Professional and
both are running Office 2003. One has AV and the other does not. Both
have firewall enabled. My home computer is a brand new Toshiba
running XP Tablet PC edition 2005. THe work computer is a 1 1/2
year-old HP.

Please help if you have any clues on what is wrong.


Thank you

And the last time you defragmented was...?

 

[CiceroINFJ]

Yesterday

I ran the disc cleanup yesterday too, before I ran the defragmentation
utility. My available hard drive space is at 70%.

One program I do not have issues with is Outlook. Go figure!! Outlook works
like a clock. Opening Word/Excel attachments from Outlook however is sluggish
as well.

You know how the patient usually suspects what's wrong with her/him before
the doctor can figure that out? As a "patient" I suspect there is something
goofy going on with Access. It might "leave" something open in the back end
after I play with the MS Access 2003 file and try clicking on its hyperlinks
and that "hole" in the back end somehow drags the entire Office afterwards.
That's just my gutt feeling.

Also, to support that "patient" assumption, I tried opening Office files
while having my Task Manager running and I did not notice any significant
changes in CPU utilization and memory use in either case (before using
hyperlinks in MS Access and afterwards). It feels like Office is sitting out
there and waiting for some response or something. And after it gets its
response, it opens my file.

That's the patient's side of the story

Thank you so much for your help.



V

 

[Echo S]

What kind of antivirus does the one system have?

Did that same AV program used to be on the other machine?

 

[CiceroINFJ]

At work we are using McAfee. I never had this antivirus software at home.
Which makes me think... I have been testing Microsoft AntiSpyware on both
home and work machines since February. I also tested and am now using MSN/
Windows Desktop search on both machines, too. Can't think of anything else
that I have running on both machines... Do you think either of those programs
can somehow counteract with Office or its handling of hyperlinks?


V

 

[Echo S]

I don't know, but disabling them to see what would happen wouldn't hurt.

I'd probably go to Start/Run and type in msconfig Then I'd disable all
startup items and reboot so there's nothing running in the background when
you start back up. Then see what the Office apps do. If they run properly,
you can re-enable the stuff in startup one at a time until you isolate the
problem.

I was thinking the Norton Antivirus Office plug-in might be causing your
probs, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[CiceroINFJ]

OK,

I had disabled all startup items in the startup tab and restarted my machine
(followed the msconfig routine like you suggested below). Still got the same
issue. Office was acting fine. Once I tried using hyperlinks in Access, it
became sluggish. So, disabling the startup items did not work.

I was reading more posts here and they suggested running %temp% in the
start>>run prompt. So I opened the %temp% folder and was able to clear all
but 2 temp files!! I could not delete a file named Jet****.tmp and another
file named ~DF****.tmp.

So I restarted my machine and played with Office 2003 while keeping my eye
on the %temp% folder. Every time I opened/closed Office files *.tmp files
were created and then removed. The same happened when I used Access without
clicking on any hyperlinks on my forms. After I closed Access all *.tmp files
were deleted from the %temp% folder. It was totally empty.

However, after I reopened Access and clicked on the hyperlinks on my forms
and then closed the Access file, out of 4 previously opened temp files, two
closed fine and two got "stuck" in the %temp% folder. One of them was
Jet****.tmp, and the other one was ~DF****.tmp.

Once these files were stuck in the %temp% folder, Office 2003 became
sluggish. A one pager Word document took almost 35 seconds to open.

So this seems like good progress. Could this be the clue?

V

I don't know, but disabling them to see what would happen wouldn't hurt.

I'd probably go to Start/Run and type in msconfig Then I'd disable all
startup items and reboot so there's nothing running in the background when
you start back up. Then see what the Office apps do. If they run properly,
you can re-enable the stuff in startup one at a time until you isolate the
problem.

I was thinking the Norton Antivirus Office plug-in might be causing your
probs, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

At work we are using McAfee. I never had this antivirus software at home.
Which makes me think... I have been testing Microsoft AntiSpyware on both
home and work machines since February. I also tested and am now using MSN/
Windows Desktop search on both machines, too. Can't think of anything else
that I have running on both machines... Do you think either of those programs
can somehow counteract with Office or its handling of hyperlinks?


V

 

[Echo S]

Great detective work. Unfortunately, I can't offer much more in the way of
ideas, as this is way out of my area of expertise. Hopefully someone more
knowledgeable in this area will pop in, though.

I did do a quick Google Groups search on ~df *.tmp, and it seems that those
are MS Spyware files (according to most of the stuff I saw, anyway).

The jet *.tmp stuff, though, sounds like the Jet database.
http://tinyurl.com/azrmf I think Access -- at least older versions of
Access, not sure about 2003 -- relies on it, but I don't know what to tell
you about fixing the problem you're having. Unless those files are hanging
around in the temp folder because the spyware stuff is scanning the
Jet**.tmp files.

I think I'd be tempted to uninstall (or at least disable, if that's
possible) the spyware beta at this point. I'd have thought turning it off
via msconfig would work, but maybe not.

 

[CiceroINFJ]

You are awesome!! Thank you. I will wait to hear if anyone can help me. I am
also going to search in the MSFT AntiSpyware discussion group. Maybe I will
run into something over there.

By the way, I unistalled AntiSpyware and my problem has still not been
resolved. However, I think the "uninstall" did not necessarily uninstall all
of the components of the Microsoft AntiSpyware. I am going to see if there is
any clean-up utility which can permanently remove all of teh AS components. I
will try and reinstall Office 2003 after that. Hopefully I will be able to
fix my issue that way.

Thanks again, and I will wait to hear from someone else who can suggest a
solution to my problem

V

Great detective work. Unfortunately, I can't offer much more in the way of
ideas, as this is way out of my area of expertise. Hopefully someone more
knowledgeable in this area will pop in, though.

I did do a quick Google Groups search on ~df *.tmp, and it seems that those
are MS Spyware files (according to most of the stuff I saw, anyway).

The jet *.tmp stuff, though, sounds like the Jet database.
http://tinyurl.com/azrmf I think Access -- at least older versions of
Access, not sure about 2003 -- relies on it, but I don't know what to tell
you about fixing the problem you're having. Unless those files are hanging
around in the temp folder because the spyware stuff is scanning the
Jet**.tmp files.

I think I'd be tempted to uninstall (or at least disable, if that's
possible) the spyware beta at this point. I'd have thought turning it off
via msconfig would work, but maybe not.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

OK,

I had disabled all startup items in the startup tab and restarted my machine
(followed the msconfig routine like you suggested below). Still got the same
issue. Office was acting fine. Once I tried using hyperlinks in Access, it
became sluggish. So, disabling the startup items did not work.

I was reading more posts here and they suggested running %temp% in the
start>>run prompt. So I opened the %temp% folder and was able to clear all
but 2 temp files!! I could not delete a file named Jet****.tmp and another
file named ~DF****.tmp.

So I restarted my machine and played with Office 2003 while keeping my eye
on the %temp% folder. Every time I opened/closed Office files *.tmp files
were created and then removed. The same happened when I used Access without
clicking on any hyperlinks on my forms. After I closed Access all *.tmp files
were deleted from the %temp% folder. It was totally empty.

However, after I reopened Access and clicked on the hyperlinks on my forms
and then closed the Access file, out of 4 previously opened temp files, two
closed fine and two got "stuck" in the %temp% folder. One of them was
Jet****.tmp, and the other one was ~DF****.tmp.

Once these files were stuck in the %temp% folder, Office 2003 became
sluggish. A one pager Word document took almost 35 seconds to open.

So this seems like good progress. Could this be the clue?

 

[CiceroINFJ]

SUCCESS!! I found the solution to my problem!!

Microsoft AntiSpyware was slowing down my Microsoft Office 2003 after I used
hyperlinks in the Office files. Uninstalling AntiSpyware alone would not
help. I downloaded a CCleaner from www.ccleaner.com and ran "scan for issues"
utility. There were a bunch of Antispyware registry keys stuck even after I
unistalled AntiSpyware. Now, my Office 2003 is laser-fast!!!

Thanks everyone for all your help!!

V

You are awesome!! Thank you. I will wait to hear if anyone can help me. I am
also going to search in the MSFT AntiSpyware discussion group. Maybe I will
run into something over there.

By the way, I unistalled AntiSpyware and my problem has still not been
resolved. However, I think the "uninstall" did not necessarily uninstall all
of the components of the Microsoft AntiSpyware. I am going to see if there is
any clean-up utility which can permanently remove all of teh AS components. I
will try and reinstall Office 2003 after that. Hopefully I will be able to
fix my issue that way.

Thanks again, and I will wait to hear from someone else who can suggest a
solution to my problem

V

Great detective work. Unfortunately, I can't offer much more in the way of
ideas, as this is way out of my area of expertise. Hopefully someone more
knowledgeable in this area will pop in, though.

I did do a quick Google Groups search on ~df *.tmp, and it seems that those
are MS Spyware files (according to most of the stuff I saw, anyway).

The jet *.tmp stuff, though, sounds like the Jet database.
http://tinyurl.com/azrmf I think Access -- at least older versions of
Access, not sure about 2003 -- relies on it, but I don't know what to tell
you about fixing the problem you're having. Unless those files are hanging
around in the temp folder because the spyware stuff is scanning the
Jet**.tmp files.

I think I'd be tempted to uninstall (or at least disable, if that's
possible) the spyware beta at this point. I'd have thought turning it off
via msconfig would work, but maybe not.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com

OK,

I had disabled all startup items in the startup tab and restarted my machine
(followed the msconfig routine like you suggested below). Still got the same
issue. Office was acting fine. Once I tried using hyperlinks in Access, it
became sluggish. So, disabling the startup items did not work.

I was reading more posts here and they suggested running %temp% in the
start>>run prompt. So I opened the %temp% folder and was able to clear all
but 2 temp files!! I could not delete a file named Jet****.tmp and another
file named ~DF****.tmp.

So I restarted my machine and played with Office 2003 while keeping my eye
on the %temp% folder. Every time I opened/closed Office files *.tmp files
were created and then removed. The same happened when I used Access without
clicking on any hyperlinks on my forms. After I closed Access all *.tmp files
were deleted from the %temp% folder. It was totally empty.

However, after I reopened Access and clicked on the hyperlinks on my forms
and then closed the Access file, out of 4 previously opened temp files, two
closed fine and two got "stuck" in the %temp% folder. One of them was
Jet****.tmp, and the other one was ~DF****.tmp.

Once these files were stuck in the %temp% folder, Office 2003 became
sluggish. A one pager Word document took almost 35 seconds to open.

So this seems like good progress. Could this be the clue?

 

[Echo S]

Wow.

Thanks so much for posting back and letting us know how you resolved this.
I'm glad to hear it's all working well now!

 

[Mani]

I tried all that you have said under SUCCESS, after deleting antispyware etc.
However I still have the problem of slow response from word, outlook and
outlook express. Excel seems to be a little fast. Any help?

Thanks
--
Mani

SUCCESS!! I found the solution to my problem!!

Microsoft AntiSpyware was slowing down my Microsoft Office 2003 after I used
hyperlinks in the Office files. Uninstalling AntiSpyware alone would not
help. I downloaded a CCleaner from www.ccleaner.com and ran "scan for issues"
utility. There were a bunch of Antispyware registry keys stuck even after I
unistalled AntiSpyware. Now, my Office 2003 is laser-fast!!!

Thanks everyone for all your help!!

V

You are awesome!! Thank you. I will wait to hear if anyone can help me. I am
also going to search in the MSFT AntiSpyware discussion group. Maybe I will
run into something over there.

By the way, I unistalled AntiSpyware and my problem has still not been
resolved. However, I think the "uninstall" did not necessarily uninstall all
of the components of the Microsoft AntiSpyware. I am going to see if there is
any clean-up utility which can permanently remove all of teh AS components. I
will try and reinstall Office 2003 after that. Hopefully I will be able to
fix my issue that way.

Thanks again, and I will wait to hear from someone else who can suggest a
solution to my problem

V

Great detective work. Unfortunately, I can't offer much more in the way of
ideas, as this is way out of my area of expertise. Hopefully someone more
knowledgeable in this area will pop in, though.

I did do a quick Google Groups search on ~df *.tmp, and it seems that those
are MS Spyware files (according to most of the stuff I saw, anyway).

The jet *.tmp stuff, though, sounds like the Jet database.
http://tinyurl.com/azrmf I think Access -- at least older versions of
Access, not sure about 2003 -- relies on it, but I don't know what to tell
you about fixing the problem you're having. Unless those files are hanging
around in the temp folder because the spyware stuff is scanning the
Jet**.tmp files.

I think I'd be tempted to uninstall (or at least disable, if that's
possible) the spyware beta at this point. I'd have thought turning it off
via msconfig would work, but maybe not.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]
http://www.echosvoice.com


OK,

I had disabled all startup items in the startup tab and restarted my
machine
(followed the msconfig routine like you suggested below). Still got the
same
issue. Office was acting fine. Once I tried using hyperlinks in Access, it
became sluggish. So, disabling the startup items did not work.

I was reading more posts here and they suggested running %temp% in the
start>>run prompt. So I opened the %temp% folder and was able to clear all
but 2 temp files!! I could not delete a file named Jet****.tmp and another
file named ~DF****.tmp.

So I restarted my machine and played with Office 2003 while keeping my eye
on the %temp% folder. Every time I opened/closed Office files *.tmp files
were created and then removed. The same happened when I used Access
without
clicking on any hyperlinks on my forms. After I closed Access all *.tmp
files
were deleted from the %temp% folder. It was totally empty.

However, after I reopened Access and clicked on the hyperlinks on my forms
and then closed the Access file, out of 4 previously opened temp files,
two
closed fine and two got "stuck" in the %temp% folder. One of them was
Jet****.tmp, and the other one was ~DF****.tmp.

Once these files were stuck in the %temp% folder, Office 2003 became
sluggish. A one pager Word document took almost 35 seconds to open.

So this seems like good progress. Could this be the clue?