MS Outlook paralizes the work of the whole PC

[Rustam]

My MS Outlook is excessively heavy. When it conducts downloading of email it
is basically freezes itself and sometimes even hanging the whole PC. It is
especially slowing down when it synchronizes the content of my Hotmail
accounts. But generally even when it is downloading my usual office mail it
stops responding to commands, I can not even cancel any actions it is doing.
And whatever I do it will be doing what it thinks is should be doing without
any regard to what I want it to do. No way on Earth to interfere in such
moments.
Is that something unusual?
I have 37 GB hard disk, of which 6 GB are free.
Below are my computer's specifications.

OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name
System Manufacturer COMPAL
System Model DCL51___
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 9 Stepping 5 GenuineIntel ~1398 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date COMPAL V1.20, 06/11/2001
SMBIOS Version 2.3
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United Kingdom
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2180
(xpsp_sp2_rtm.040803-2158)"
User Name USER-NYT0O2PJZI\user
Time Zone SA Pacific Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 1,024.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 242.42 MB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 1.62 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

 

[P Cause]

I have noticed the same thing. It seems that whenever email is being
received or folders sync'ed, OL 2007 brings an entire system to its knees and
causes things to become sluggish or freeze. Very frustrating.

MS is supposed to be famous for "eating its own dog food", but one wonders
if anyone there bothered to use this Beta before they released. If they did,
there must be a lot of dead dogs at MS

 

[Rustam]

Thanks! It feels better to know that someone else is also suffering with me.
But is there anything that could be done about this? I used to use Outlook
Express and then switched to MS Outlook to start using all those fancy
features it has (Calendar, Planner, etc), spent a whole day migrating my
email and settings. Moving back would now be a recognition of failure on my
side, and I hate to fail. Perhaps someone knows what to do?
Regards