4 to 20 second doc freeze-ups when opening Word files

[HapInBoulder]

I am having a problem with temporary freeze up delays of 4 to 20 seconds and
sometimes longer when opening Microsoft Word documents after the first page
of the document initially displays. It is especially disruptive when I open
a second or third MS Word document.

When I open the first Microsoft Word document with no other Microsoft Word
documents open, the delay is about 4 seconds without any intervention on my
part. During that 4 second period of time the file name and size appear
where the Microsoft Word status bar normally appears (e.g., a display of
page, section, line, column, etc) just above the very bottom Windows bar that
contains the Start button. But, if I click the cursor anywhere in the
document, the status bar immediately appears, it immediately becomes
un-frozen and I can work with the document.

If that were the extent of it, I’d just live with it. But, when I open a
second Microsoft Word document, clicking the cursor in the document has no
effect and the document stays frozen for 10 to 20 seconds. Again, the file
name and size are displayed in the status bar location and the document
“un-freezes†when the status bar appears. I suspect that files with tables
stay frozen longer that ones that do not have tables. The same thing happens
when 3rd and 4th Microsoft Word files are opened.

I am using Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 on a IBM Thinkpad with
a 1.5 GigaHz Pentium M processor with 248 Mbytes of RAM. My operating system
is Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 2 with all of the latest
upgrades as of 7/16/2006.

At the suggestion of an MVP, I went through all of the steps in the doc at
"http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm" without any
improvement.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[John McGhie [MVP - Word and Word Macintosh]]

Hi:

OK, you're going to have to go searching for this one.

Your processor is a bit slow (and/or you're a bit light on memory) for doing
large documents in Word. My first suggestion would be to lift that computer
to 1 GB of memory: it will make a huge difference. The operating system
itself uses nearly 256 MB of memory to run properly: you have very little
left over for Word.

Word will run well in 512 MB of memory if you have faster processor: with a
slower processor, add even more memory so you are not waiting on the hard
disk to give you Virtual Memory.

I think most of your problem is that you are waiting for the system to page
stuff out to disk to make room. Check your hard disk light while you are
opening documents: if it goes on and stays on for several seconds, that's
your problem, and only "more memory" will fix it.

If you want to get technical, bring up Task Manager and check under the
Performance tab. Bring up a trace of memory usage and watch what happens
while you load documents. I think you'll find that it flat-lines after the
first document

Closing other applications will help some, but a big feed of memory is what
you really need

Other things you can check for: Make sure that your documents are not
attached to templates that are not on your computer, and that the document
was not last printed on a printer that is not connected. Word can wait
several seconds before deciding that a template or a printer is not
available when opening a document.

But *I* think you're just plain out of memory.

Hope this helps

I am having a problem with temporary freeze up delays of 4 to 20 seconds and
sometimes longer when opening Microsoft Word documents after the first page
of the document initially displays. It is especially disruptive when I open
a second or third MS Word document.

When I open the first Microsoft Word document with no other Microsoft Word
documents open, the delay is about 4 seconds without any intervention on my
part. During that 4 second period of time the file name and size appear
where the Microsoft Word status bar normally appears (e.g., a display of
page, section, line, column, etc) just above the very bottom Windows bar that
contains the Start button. But, if I click the cursor anywhere in the
document, the status bar immediately appears, it immediately becomes
un-frozen and I can work with the document.

If that were the extent of it, I¹d just live with it. But, when I open a
second Microsoft Word document, clicking the cursor in the document has no
effect and the document stays frozen for 10 to 20 seconds. Again, the file
name and size are displayed in the status bar location and the document
³un-freezes² when the status bar appears. I suspect that files with tables
stay frozen longer that ones that do not have tables. The same thing happens
when 3rd and 4th Microsoft Word files are opened.

I am using Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 on a IBM Thinkpad with
a 1.5 GigaHz Pentium M processor with 248 Mbytes of RAM. My operating system
is Windows XP Professional Version 2002 Service Pack 2 with all of the latest
upgrades as of 7/16/2006.

At the suggestion of an MVP, I went through all of the steps in the doc at
"http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm" without any
improvement.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

--

Please reply to the newsgroup to maintain the thread. Please do not email
me unless I ask you to.

John McGhie <[email protected]>
Microsoft MVP, Word and Word for Macintosh. Consultant Technical Writer
Sydney, Australia +61 (0) 4 1209 1410