Office Pro 2003 Sluggish

[Tiny]

Since upgrading to MS Office Pro 2003, my system (1G processor, 512K
memory--with plenty of free HD space) has become extremely sluggish. Bringing
up programs, accessing the Internet, etc. have been exasperatingly slow. I
blamed part of the slowness to connect to the Internet on DSL, but they said
that it is my computer that is causing the slowness (initially brining up the
browser) and that my connection speed is fast (3,000-6,000).

Is there a "fix" for this? Will upgrading from XP Home to Vista, when it is
available, resolve this issue?

 

[DL]

Upgrading the o/s is not the issue.
Presumably you have scanned your sys for both Virus, and malaware.
A malaware scan should be done with at least 3 different apps, eg MS
Defender, Spybot and Adaware.
How does your sys perform in safe mode?

 

[Tiny]

Oh, yes! I downloaded all updates to the suite, scanned for viruses, spams,
spyware, and used utilities (Spybot Search and Destroy, Ad-Aware, HijackThis,
XPMedic, Ace Utilities) to clean files and registry (after experiencing the
problem...so this didn't cause it), defragging it, etc. I have not tried
running it in Safe Mode, but will do so.

 

[DL]

To add, if by slugish you meant only office apps, your AV plugin can cause
this.

 

[Tiny]

Not only MS Office apps, though these are the programs that I most often use.

 

[DL]

Use msconfig to disable all none MS startups and test
(You may care to close your internet connection whilst doing so)
If things are then better its a process of ellimination, by re enabling a
batch of msconfig startups at a time & retesting.

 

[Tiny]

Thanks, DL...I'll do as you suggest. I have whittled down my startup programs
pretty drastically already.