Word's gotten sluggish - Reinstall?

[Richard]

Hi All,

I'm running Office 2003/SP2 over WinXP-Pro/SP2. My system is up-to-
date with Windows Update and is protected with AVG-Free and PrevX, as
well as Start Up Cop Pro.

For a couple of weeks now, Office Word 2003 SP2 has gotten very
sluggish.

1. Opening a new word document from Windows Explorer's context menu:
a. absent an existing instance, takes:
i. A minute or two open a document window without a
blank new page
ii. Another half-minute or so to open the blank page
itself
b. otherwise opens instantly.
2. Copying text to the clipboard:
a. from a Word document, takes a half-minute or so
b. from all other applications, takes no time

Poor performance is experienced even when I have nothing running in
foreground but a couple of Word instances and a couple of Windows
Explorer instances.

The only thing I can recall installing on my system recently is SWI-
Prolog (http://www.swi-prolog.org/).

It looks to me like I should just reinstall Office 2003 and not waste
your time and mine. Agree?

TIA,
Richard

 

[db]

if word works
well in safemode, then i
don't think word is the problem
and reinstalling it won't fix
the problems existing in
normal mode.

- db
Hi All,

I'm running Office 2003/SP2 over WinXP-Pro/SP2. My system is up-to-
date with Windows Update and is protected with AVG-Free and PrevX, as
well as Start Up Cop Pro.

For a couple of weeks now, Office Word 2003 SP2 has gotten very
sluggish.

1. Opening a new word document from Windows Explorer's context menu:
a. absent an existing instance, takes:
i. A minute or two open a document window without a
blank new page
ii. Another half-minute or so to open the blank page
itself
b. otherwise opens instantly.
2. Copying text to the clipboard:
a. from a Word document, takes a half-minute or so
b. from all other applications, takes no time

Poor performance is experienced even when I have nothing running in
foreground but a couple of Word instances and a couple of Windows
Explorer instances.

The only thing I can recall installing on my system recently is SWI-
Prolog (http://www.swi-prolog.org/).

It looks to me like I should just reinstall Office 2003 and not waste
your time and mine. Agree?

TIA,
Richard

 

[Richard]

if word works well in safemode, then i don't think word is the problem

Thanks, good point. I'll try it over the weekend. If Word seems OK
in that context, I'll start cutting out some of the things that run
in background with the hope that I'll kill the culprit.

 

[db]

you're welcome.

one other thing is to
see if word internet
service is enabled.

if so, then you might
want to disable it via
its tools/preference/services.

- db

if word works well in safemode, then i don't think word is the problem

Thanks, good point. I'll try it over the weekend. If Word seems OK
in that context, I'll start cutting out some of the things that run
in background with the hope that I'll kill the culprit.

 

[Richard]

Thanks for an additional idea.

tools/preference/services

In Word 2003/SP2, the Tools menu doesn't have a Preference item. Word
Help didn't seem to offer anything relevant when searching for
"preference", "services" or both.

The only Internet-related item presented was Online Collaboration.

The only other Internet-related feature I'm aware of is File | Send,
which invokes Outlook. But I don't use this because I prefer to use
FireFox + WebMail

If you've got any further idea about this, I'd be glad to hear it.

 

[db]

my apologies...

it is tools | options | general

near the bottom are buttons that
can disable some automation
using the internet.

i suggest that this may be of
some help, becuase if word is
sluggish it may be stuggling with
connecting....

tools/preference/services

In Word 2003/SP2, the Tools menu doesn't have a Preference item. Word
Help didn't seem to offer anything relevant when searching for
"preference", "services" or both.

The only Internet-related item presented was Online Collaboration.

The only other Internet-related feature I'm aware of is File | Send,
which invokes Outlook. But I don't use this because I prefer to use
FireFox + WebMail

If you've got any further idea about this, I'd be glad to hear it.

 

[Richard]

Hi DB,

... apologies

Hey, you're helping me! If any apologies are due, it's me who
should be apologizing for bothering everybody with my petty problems.

I only saw one thing that I felt I could easily do without: "update
automatic links at open". I unchecked it.

Maybe it's my imagination; maybe it's the fact that it's around
midnight; for whatever reason, new instances are opening
immediately!

I'm going to live with this for a while and see if stays "normal".
Regardless, I'm delighted. Thanks for your suggestion to look at
Tools|Options|General.

Best wishes,
Richard

 

[db]

you're welcome.

... apologies

Hey, you're helping me! If any apologies are due, it's me who
should be apologizing for bothering everybody with my petty problems.

I only saw one thing that I felt I could easily do without: "update
automatic links at open". I unchecked it.

Maybe it's my imagination; maybe it's the fact that it's around
midnight; for whatever reason, new instances are opening
immediately!

I'm going to live with this for a while and see if stays "normal".
Regardless, I'm delighted. Thanks for your suggestion to look at
Tools|Options|General.

Best wishes,
Richard