Outlook 2007 RTM still slow

[xzoozx]

I've installed Outlook 2007 with great expectations. Unfortunately,
there are performance issues that are pretty much rendering it useless
to me.

Just to note, I'm on a brand new Core 2 Duo T7400, XP sp2 install, so
it's not hardware or legacy XP junk slowing me down.

When I start Outlook, it takes ~30 seconds before I am able to perform
any action.

When email is being received, Outlook freezes. If I'm composing an
email at the time, I can no longer type. If I'm trying to view or
delete other email, no luck. I have 5 email accounts, so the freezing
is around 12-15 seconds every 2 minutes. If I'm receiving a file, the
freezing lasts longer.

Deleting more than a few items from my inbox often freezes things too.

Not to mention it's using 100MB of memory.

I heard that the Beta had similar problems, looks like it made it into
RTM. Does anyone know a fix (besides reinstalling oulook 2003).




Z

 

[Ales Susnik]

PST size?

Have same problems here.

I'm playing around at the moment with the fact that i reduced the size of
PST (archived things into another PST) from 6.4gb to 1,5gb... it looks like
it runs faster now... can't confirm yet...

Also, tried, Help, Office Diagnostics, that solved some speed issuses for
me, but again i'm not sure, cause the problem did return.

A.

 

[Milhouse Van Houten]

Is this all while the new Windows Desktop Search is ongoing (is your disk
light solid red)? It sounds like it, since Outlook really isn't any slower
than it ever has been. What is slower in 2007 is rendering of complex HTML
mail, since they're off the IE engine now, so for things like complex
newsletters it's a matter of a couple extra seconds. I think you're looking
at indexing issues, which should settle down after a day or so.

 

[Ales Susnik]

I disagree, I uninstalled WDS, the problem is when i'm receiving 50 emails,
all together no more then 2mb, you should see Outlook choke on this.

A.

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

I had some fun here with B2TR and my 6 GB Outlook PST last week (it was
a nightmare). Here are some things I learnt from that:
- Keep the PST size down. You can use AutoArchive or Archive to get
things out of your PST. I'd highly suggest to do that regularly. If you
have the need to move entire folders or large quantities of messages out
of your PST into another PST, do not use Import/Export. Instead, you'd
normally make a new PST and drag & drop folders over. Unfortunately that
is awfully slow. However, you can move large quantities simply by
running Archive into a newly created PST by limiting it to a folder.
That actually is fast.
- Compact the PST regularly. Just moving things out of the PST won't
reduce it in size.
- The most important thing I learnt though is that not the overall PST
size is a real performance issues, but rather the number of messages
within a PST/folder. See
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/03/14/395229.aspx (this is for
OST files, meaning when you use Outlook with an Exchange server, but it
seems to apply to PSTs as well). Quite frankly, reducing some of my
folders from 30,000 messages each to 2,000 or so did wonders for my
performance.

The usual stuff applies as well:
- Test it in safe mode (Start, Run, "outlook /safe"). If you don't
experience the issue then, then the problem is caused by an add-in.
- Switch off any anti-virus integration into Outlook or email. It's
plain unnecessary and just costs you performance.

I hope this helps!

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
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[Ales Susnik]

No OST here, just PST, OST would die with me and it's 2gb limit.

Your advice is great, thank you, it does confirm my logic and working
behaviour with Outlook till now, I do everything regulary, just not Auto
Archive... since searching can be a trouble.
Number of messages with me is way over 90.000... that might have been an
issue...

I will report back regarding my issue, for the sake of other users who might
run into this problem.

Again, thanks.
A.

I had some fun here with B2TR and my 6 GB Outlook PST last week (it was
a nightmare). Here are some things I learnt from that:
- Keep the PST size down. You can use AutoArchive or Archive to get
things out of your PST. I'd highly suggest to do that regularly. If you
have the need to move entire folders or large quantities of messages out
of your PST into another PST, do not use Import/Export. Instead, you'd
normally make a new PST and drag & drop folders over. Unfortunately that
is awfully slow. However, you can move large quantities simply by
running Archive into a newly created PST by limiting it to a folder.
That actually is fast.
- Compact the PST regularly. Just moving things out of the PST won't
reduce it in size.
- The most important thing I learnt though is that not the overall PST
size is a real performance issues, but rather the number of messages
within a PST/folder. See
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/03/14/395229.aspx (this is for
OST files, meaning when you use Outlook with an Exchange server, but it
seems to apply to PSTs as well). Quite frankly, reducing some of my
folders from 30,000 messages each to 2,000 or so did wonders for my
performance.

The usual stuff applies as well:
- Test it in safe mode (Start, Run, "outlook /safe"). If you don't
experience the issue then, then the problem is caused by an add-in.
- Switch off any anti-virus integration into Outlook or email. It's
plain unnecessary and just costs you performance.

I hope this helps!

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

I disagree, I uninstalled WDS, the problem is when i'm receiving 50 emails,
all together no more then 2mb, you should see Outlook choke on this.

A.

 

[xzoozx]

Just a followup, but no good news.

I've tried all suggestions, safe mode, etc. I don't run AV software,
and my pst file is 2.8GB, whch isn't too insanely big (I archived about
1GB of it yesterday). Full-on indexing completed long ago, so that
isn't the issue.

Still:
- slow startup (30 seconds)
- freezing for 2-10 seconds on send/receive. no other actions can be
performed on outlook when send/receive is happening.

I've noticed other "bad" behavior:
- other MS products "freeze" sometimes when a send/receive happens.
Even Visual Studio pauses on occassion, not allowing me to type.
- even notepad doesn't fire up instantly when a send/receive is
happening, as if waiting for the Outlook God to give it permission.

I suspect it's the built-in indexing thing --- ie as soon as an email
is received, Outlook tries to index it. But hey, can't that happen in
the _background_???

Come on microsoft, I'm dying over here. You're making my daily
computing experience painful, and actually hindering my programming
(using your products for that too I might add).

Maybe I'll just go back to using elm. <sigh> Open source is starting
look more and more attractive.

Z

 

[Ales Susnik]

One suggestion/idea... had exact problems... I archived up to 31.05.2006.
My amount of emails went from over 90.000 down to less then 5.000. I had
emails way back to 2003. Don't ask why.
Try to reduce the amount of emails (number of emails) in your PST... if that
helps.
Please if it ain't too much to ask, report back or via email
([email protected]).

I'm suprised that not so many people have this problem... weird...

Thank you in advance.

A.

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

I asked around a bit.
Z:
What accounts do you have (Exchange, POP, IMAP)? How many of each?
How many RSS feeds/SharePoint sites do you subscribe to?

Apparently RSS feeds and SharePoint sites can have a dramatic impact on
send/receive performance.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
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[Ales Susnik]

If I may reply also: 5 POP3, 0 RSS, 0 SharePoint.

A.

I asked around a bit.
Z:
What accounts do you have (Exchange, POP, IMAP)? How many of each?
How many RSS feeds/SharePoint sites do you subscribe to?

Apparently RSS feeds and SharePoint sites can have a dramatic impact on
send/receive performance.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
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One suggestion/idea... had exact problems... I archived up to 31.05.2006.
My amount of emails went from over 90.000 down to less then 5.000. I had
emails way back to 2003. Don't ask why.
Try to reduce the amount of emails (number of emails) in your PST... if that
helps.
Please if it ain't too much to ask, report back or via email
([email protected]).

I'm suprised that not so many people have this problem... weird...

Thank you in advance.

A.

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

If you use Outlook for RSS feeds, there is something else you can try to
improve performance and lower the memory footprint.
Outlook asked you to sync the RSS feed list with the IE7 maintained
system feed list when you opened it for the first time. Unfortunately if
you selected to sync them, all the XML for all your feeds will be loaded
into memory and will be there at all times (this has to do with how IE7
handles this). If you have many feeds or some big ones, this can be a
serious issue.
If you don't use IE7 for RSS feeds, disable it right away.
If you use IE7 for RSS feeds, disable it and only enable it from time to
time to let the lists sync. Syncing btw means that only additions are
synced. If you remove a feed from Outlook or IE7, this is not reflected
in the other program.
You can change the setting with Tools, Options, Other, Advanced Options,
"Sync RSS Feeds to the Common Systems Feed List".

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
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[spooniep]

I've been using the final version of Outlook 2007 from MSDN for a few
days now, and I have to say, it's driving me crazy. I have just one POP
box set up, but about a 2GB pst file. It just crawls and takes up to 30
seconds to preview messages sometimes, and about every 30 to 45
seconds, my entire computer comes screeching to a halt, and can't do
anything.

I went through and disabled all add-ins that I could find, except for
Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging, and I don't have the desktop
search enabled either. I've got Norton Antivirus also disabled to no
avail.

I'm trying to archive some of my old messages now to see if that helps,
but it seems odd to me that it would slow down the entire computer, not
just Outlook. I have a Pentium 4 2.6GHz HT processor, 2.5GB of RAM and
plenty of disk space to spare, so I don't think it's a system resource
issue.

I never had these problems with Outlook 2003.

Any ideas?

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

Read all the suggestions I posted in this thread.
You have only ONE POP account?

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
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[spooniep]

Yeah, I've only got one POP account, I've tried running in Safe Mode,
Anti-virus disabled and defragging, and none of these have helped.

However, I've just finished archiving a bunch of messages, and seeing
some significant performance enhancement. I'll post back if I continue
to have problems, but it appears to have been an issue with the number
of messages or size of my .pst file.

Read all the suggestions I posted in this thread.
You have only ONE POP account?

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

I've been using the final version of Outlook 2007 from MSDN for a few
days now, and I have to say, it's driving me crazy. I have just one POP
box set up, but about a 2GB pst file. It just crawls and takes up to 30
seconds to preview messages sometimes, and about every 30 to 45
seconds, my entire computer comes screeching to a halt, and can't do
anything.

I went through and disabled all add-ins that I could find, except for
Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging, and I don't have the desktop
search enabled either. I've got Norton Antivirus also disabled to no
avail.

I'm trying to archive some of my old messages now to see if that helps,
but it seems odd to me that it would slow down the entire computer, not
just Outlook. I have a Pentium 4 2.6GHz HT processor, 2.5GB of RAM and
plenty of disk space to spare, so I don't think it's a system resource
issue.

I never had these problems with Outlook 2003.

Any ideas?

 

[Ales Susnik]

Message number... PST size doesn't matter i found out...

Went from 90.000 way down here, to get it working :-(

A.

Yeah, I've only got one POP account, I've tried running in Safe Mode,
Anti-virus disabled and defragging, and none of these have helped.

However, I've just finished archiving a bunch of messages, and seeing
some significant performance enhancement. I'll post back if I continue
to have problems, but it appears to have been an issue with the number
of messages or size of my .pst file.

Read all the suggestions I posted in this thread.
You have only ONE POP account?

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

I've been using the final version of Outlook 2007 from MSDN for a few
days now, and I have to say, it's driving me crazy. I have just one POP
box set up, but about a 2GB pst file. It just crawls and takes up to 30
seconds to preview messages sometimes, and about every 30 to 45
seconds, my entire computer comes screeching to a halt, and can't do
anything.

I went through and disabled all add-ins that I could find, except for
Microsoft Exchange Unified Messaging, and I don't have the desktop
search enabled either. I've got Norton Antivirus also disabled to no
avail.

I'm trying to archive some of my old messages now to see if that helps,
but it seems odd to me that it would slow down the entire computer, not
just Outlook. I have a Pentium 4 2.6GHz HT processor, 2.5GB of RAM and
plenty of disk space to spare, so I don't think it's a system resource
issue.

I never had these problems with Outlook 2003.

Any ideas?

 

[Johnny]

You are not the only one. This is a problem that has existed since the early
Beta. I hoped it would be addressed in the Beta2 Refresh, but was not. Now,
i'm shocked to see it ended up in the RTM. Do a google search, you'll see
several people complaining about this.

I personally use Outlook on a daily basis, and since installing the OL2007
RTM, i can't get anything done. I've had to set SEND/RECEIVE interval to
every 30 minutes, down from the usual 2 minutes... like everyone here has
reported, my hard drive goes nuts when messages arrive. Deleting messages is
also a task. Switching folders can take up to a minute. It's like the product
is still in beta.

Disabling AV programs, etc won't help. Compacting the PST, defragging, etc
won't help either. I've read some people "improved" performance by archiving
a large chunk of their messages. I find this to be a lazy solution at best.
My PST size is 1.5GB... it's unacceptable to me to think that Outlook can not
handle a 1.5GB PST file, when the 2000, XP, and 2003 versions handled it just
fine.

I'm no Microsoft hater, but i can't believe they would leave this problem
unchecked.

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

See the other suggestions in this thread, especially the one related to
the number of message items.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
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[Ales Susnik]

Hopefuly someone from MS support will address this... since well I did tell
my co-worker NOT to upgrade his Outlook, since he has way over 100.000
messages... it will hog his machine... MS should address this as urgent, even
tho Outlook isn't shipping soon to ordinary people (non MSDN subscribers,
etc...) but this will sooner or later make a big boom.

A.

See the other suggestions in this thread, especially the one related to
the number of message items.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

You are not the only one. This is a problem that has existed since the early
Beta. I hoped it would be addressed in the Beta2 Refresh, but was not. Now,
i'm shocked to see it ended up in the RTM. Do a google search, you'll see
several people complaining about this.

I personally use Outlook on a daily basis, and since installing the OL2007
RTM, i can't get anything done. I've had to set SEND/RECEIVE interval to
every 30 minutes, down from the usual 2 minutes... like everyone here has
reported, my hard drive goes nuts when messages arrive. Deleting messages is
also a task. Switching folders can take up to a minute. It's like the product
is still in beta.

Disabling AV programs, etc won't help. Compacting the PST, defragging, etc
won't help either. I've read some people "improved" performance by archiving
a large chunk of their messages. I find this to be a lazy solution at best.
My PST size is 1.5GB... it's unacceptable to me to think that Outlook can not
handle a 1.5GB PST file, when the 2000, XP, and 2003 versions handled it just
fine.

I'm no Microsoft hater, but i can't believe they would leave this problem
unchecked.

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

How would you like to see MS Support address this?

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

Hopefuly someone from MS support will address this... since well I did tell
my co-worker NOT to upgrade his Outlook, since he has way over 100.000
messages... it will hog his machine... MS should address this as urgent, even
tho Outlook isn't shipping soon to ordinary people (non MSDN subscribers,
etc...) but this will sooner or later make a big boom.

A.

See the other suggestions in this thread, especially the one related to
the number of message items.

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
Subscribe to my Office 2007 blog: http://pschmid.net/blog/feed

You are not the only one. This is a problem that has existed since the early
Beta. I hoped it would be addressed in the Beta2 Refresh, but was not. Now,
i'm shocked to see it ended up in the RTM. Do a google search, you'll see
several people complaining about this.

I personally use Outlook on a daily basis, and since installing the OL2007
RTM, i can't get anything done. I've had to set SEND/RECEIVE interval to
every 30 minutes, down from the usual 2 minutes... like everyone here has
reported, my hard drive goes nuts when messages arrive. Deleting messages is
also a task. Switching folders can take up to a minute. It's like the product
is still in beta.

Disabling AV programs, etc won't help. Compacting the PST, defragging, etc
won't help either. I've read some people "improved" performance by archiving
a large chunk of their messages. I find this to be a lazy solution at best.
My PST size is 1.5GB... it's unacceptable to me to think that Outlook can not
handle a 1.5GB PST file, when the 2000, XP, and 2003 versions handled it just
fine.

I'm no Microsoft hater, but i can't believe they would leave this problem
unchecked.

:



I've installed Outlook 2007 with great expectations. Unfortunately,
there are performance issues that are pretty much rendering it useless
to me.

Just to note, I'm on a brand new Core 2 Duo T7400, XP sp2 install, so
it's not hardware or legacy XP junk slowing me down.

When I start Outlook, it takes ~30 seconds before I am able to perform
any action.

When email is being received, Outlook freezes. If I'm composing an
email at the time, I can no longer type. If I'm trying to view or
delete other email, no luck. I have 5 email accounts, so the freezing
is around 12-15 seconds every 2 minutes. If I'm receiving a file, the
freezing lasts longer.

Deleting more than a few items from my inbox often freezes things too.

Not to mention it's using 100MB of memory.

I heard that the Beta had similar problems, looks like it made it into
RTM. Does anyone know a fix (besides reinstalling oulook 2003).




Z

 

[Patrick Schmid [MVP]]

I have a few questions for everyone who has reported performance issues:
1. Do you only use POP accounts?
2. How many emails do you download at once?
3. Do you use rules that distribute the messages across multiple
folders? If yes, how many rules and how many folders are you
distributing things across?
4. If you switch off all rules, does the performance get better? (You
can distribute the messages afterwards from the Inbox by running the
rules over the Inbox).

Patrick Schmid [OneNote MVP]
--------------
http://pschmid.net
***
Office 2007 RTM Issues: http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/11/13/80
Office 2007 Beta 2 Technical Refresh (B2TR):
http://pschmid.net/blog/2006/09/18/43
***
Customize Office 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/customize
OneNote 2007: http://pschmid.net/office2007/onenote
***
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