Good morning,

I have noticed over the past several days that Microsoft Word is very slow to open. It doesn't matter whether I open from a document name itself or from the program icon, it will take approximately 45-60 seconds to open the program. I thought it was me being impatient until I watched my husband's computer; Word opened immediately upon his mouse click.

The version I use is MS Word 2003 (bundled with the Suite and all the other programs work and open normally, i.e. Excel, Access, Power Point, etc.) The OS is Win XP Pro/SP2. Virus protection is AVG 7.5 Free edition. The system is a 2.7 Intel cpu with 1 gig RAM. I have checked for viruses, spyware, adware, etc. and the system was clean. All the updates are current for both Windows and Office.

The ONLY major update added recently has been IE7 and as a high priority update, it downloaded automatically, although I have Firefox designated as my default browser.

Does anyone have any idea of what might be out of place or how to correct it? I have some major publishing projects and use Word for the text portion, so problems especially at this time are not good.

Thanks for any help or suggestions available.

Sue

Hi
let me take a guess and assume that Word is just about the only programme you are using at the moment: my first port of call would be to check that you are not running out of disc space, and then to defragment your hard-drive(s). Note that Windows XP requires 15% free space on a disc to defragment it successfully.

Best way to do a defrag is from the command prompt: type in' defrag C:\' (without the quotes and substituting whatever letter your drive is if not C) and then go to bed. Make sure nothing else is running first. Ideally, boot into safe mode first.

Pip

I've run defrag so many times, it's not funny. Still, very slow. I have a 200 gig hard drive so I don't believe space or RAM is the problem.

Sue

Hi Sue:

I know how it feels! It's really frustrating! And I have not often found defragging helps, especially with the kind of computer that you have. However, it need not be sneezed at.

There are a couple of other possibilities that might be slowing things down.

I do not know what you have on your computer, apart from what you have mentioned, but it all seems pretty normal, and should not be slowing things down. However, it may be that unbeknownst to you, when your computer starts, it is loading up a whole bunch of stuff, that is sitting there and taking up the working power (CPU and RAM) that you need to do what you really want to do. Could I suggest an excellent program called Win Patrol. This has been around for a good long time, is very safe and is a really excellent tool to help you know what is going on in your computer, and helping you manage it.

It is freeware, with a PLUS version that you pay for once, then lasts a lifetime. A truly remarkable and very highly-respected program. It was recently reviewed by the Neat Net Tricks Review Panel, who were unanimous in their high praise for this program. You can see their review at: http://www.neatnettricks.com/SoftwareReviews/index.html

You can find Win Patrol at: http://www.winpatrol.com/download.html

The other possibility is that your registry has somehow been loaded up with excess junk. And as you are probably aware, this very site has a product that is pretty fine for dealing with Registry issues. Regvac is also a good program, and has excellent support from the developer.

Maybe that will help.

Peter

Sue,

Try closing your antivirus program just long enough to try opening Word again.  For whatever reason, AVG antivirus has slowed opening of programs down something fierce on my computer.  With AVG off, Word opens in about a heartbeat and a half.  With it running, I have the same problem you have.

I'm also running Zone Alarm Pro.  What I first did was close both of them, then tried to open Word (I've got an older Word 97) - it opened like lightning (well, nearly so, compared to before).  I then restarted Zone Alarm and had no appreciable slow down.  Then I shut it back down and restarted my antivirus (AVG) - bingo!  Found the problem.

Now that I know what it is, I'm willing to live with it - just not knowing was my concern.  I'd checked to see what was running in the background, and I run RegVac regularly, so I was stumped.

I'll be interested to see if you're running AVG antivirus, or if not, if it turns out to be whatever antivirus program you are using.  If not, check to see if you have any spyware program running all the time, try disabling it (i.e. closing it), and see if that's the culprit.  Good luck!

C.R.

You guys are great!  I DO use AVG and have recently upgraded to the new 7.5 Free version. As suggested, I closed AVG, clicked on Word and was ready to go almost instantly. I closed Word, reopened AVG and then reopened Word with the same problem. WAIT - WAIT - WAIT!

I don't like it but since I know what is causing it, I can live with it; I have to, I have no choice. Again, thanks so much for the answer to my mystery!

Sue

Hi Sue:

Glad that someone had a good suggestion. But that's pretty strange to me. I have AVG 7.5 (the paid version, but the free one should be the same), along with Ewido and aSquared anti-spy and the Windows Firewall (although I think that I'm going to Sygate -- haven't decided quite yet). And Word. And gobs of other stuff.

But it's Word 97, and it opens with a snap. Maybe that's the difference?

Peter

If AVG was making things slow suggest you try http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
and download the Free vesrion.

Just as good as AVG

I would like to add that windows defragger is a minimal defragging program.  Once things get out of hand it has a very hard time fully defragging a drive.  It is also unable to defrag the MFT (Master File Table).

I use Diskeeper, this program does a very thorough job of defragging the hard drive, it can run a boot defrag to take care of the MFT and Paging File.  It also allows you to adjust the size of your MFT (called Padding) which can alleviate a lot of disk problems in NTFS.