outlook 2007 slow, hangs - fix from microsoft support

[Nevsky]

- Show quoted text -

i've been working with Office 2007 since it was in beta as well as
vista since build 52XX
today i'm on the latest released versions, but as much as i love vista
and office 2007 i had to:

Uninstall Outlook 2007 and revert back to 2003
Disable Aero Glass on Vista

HUGE performance problems.

and ..the funny part..

i'm running a DELL PRECISION 690 with TWO QUAD XEONS, 4GB Ram, 3 SAS
Drives in RAID 0 on a PERC5 controller, NVIDIA QUADRO FX with 512Mb
Ram

i get 5.9 through all the Vista Perfomance Indexes

and with Outlook 2007 i have to WAIT to open a message, sometimes it
even seemes to freeze!!

Jeez! MS...i love your products..but please..work harder on getting
them right in the first place

I have had similar problems with an otherwise very fast Vista 64-bit
machine. I just found one small fix that improved performance measurably,
but not tremendously; still not adequate for a product like this. Outlook
performance should be high on the Microsoft punch list as email is critical
for most people.

Performance is noticeably improved if all safe senders are added to the Safe
Sender List (or even better, if it makes sense, in a specific case, the
domain). This saves considerable time in downloading the HTML. (This will
also apply to the Safe Recipients List.)

This is assuming that “Don’t download pictures automatically in HTML e-mail
messages or RSS items†is checked in “Automatic Download in the “Trust
Center.†Of course, you could uncheck the box, but that could expose you to
more spam.

 

[K]

Does not work on every machine. The files are sometimes not there.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Does not work on every machine. The files are sometimes not there.

You probably have not enabled viewing hidden files and folders on the
systems where they do not appear.

 

[awe]

I read in a post in another forum that some of the problems with Outlook 2007
on Vista is that it shares the Vista indexing system for optimising searches.
Well, it makes a search go fast, but it slows down everything else!

You can remove Outlook from indexed locations in Vista, and that solved the
performance for me:

Ref. Windows Vista help:
How do I remove a location I rarely use from the index?
1. Control Panel – Indexing Options (To see this in the control panel, you
must switch to Classic View in the left pane)
2. Click Modify.
3. To remove a location, clear its check box in the Change selected
locations list, and then click OK. (in our case, clear the check box for
Outlook..)

Regards,
Ã…smund.

 

[Viki]

i know im a little late in the replies but i just joined in recently. this is
not a fix for everyone. Microsoft knew about this problem since last year,
dont know why they told you they didnt. I've seen this "fix" in many threads.
it works for some doesn't for other.
in my case, when i did the upgrade and looked for those files, they didn't
exist.

 

[Martikate]

I am unable to locate these files. My computer denies the directory exsists
when I type it directly into the location bar, and if I try hunting around on
my own, I get stuck at C:\Users - there isn't a "user-directory" listed; and
when I guessed that "user-directory" was possibly the directory with my name
on it, I once again hit a dead end. The "Search" feature in the Start Menu
produced similar results.

I'm running Office 2007 on Vista; I previously had Office XP, but never used
Outlook before this. I use Outlook with my Hotmail account. I've been
experiencing the slowness and near-constant freezes since the install, over a
month ago. I tried the "Repair" function in the Uninstall Progams feature,
and while it greatly improved the performance, that only lasted for a few
days.

Any new advice, or suggestions on finding the corrupted files? I'm at my
wits end!

 

[GreyGoose]

For the slowness of Vista, try www.auslogics.com, Boost Speed. They have a 15 day review after that, it's $30 for either a download or a CD. I've tried the Boost Speed on both Vista & XP and I loved it. I think every Vista computer should buy this because it really, really does boost the speed of your computer. I bought it and can't imagine what I'd do without it.

The also have a totally FREE defragmenter & registry defragment. You'll like that much better than Windows disk defragmenter. http://auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag/download
http://auslogics.com/en/software/registry-defrag/download

 

[Martikate]

Thanks, but it isn't Vista itself - it's just this one program. I installed
Office 2007, and Outlook is the only one of the suite that has shown any sort
of slowness.

I'm not really looking to spend any money to make a program that I already
own work the way it should. I'd rather go back to using Hotmail on the web.

 

[Brian Tillman [MVP - Outlook]]

I am unable to locate these files. My computer denies the directory
exsists
when I type it directly into the location bar, and if I try hunting around
on
my own, I get stuck at C:\Users - there isn't a "user-directory" listed;
and
when I guessed that "user-directory" was possibly the directory with my
name
on it, I once again hit a dead end. The "Search" feature in the Start
Menu
produced similar results.

It is the folder with your username. By default, many of the folders under
that folder are hidden folders. You must enable viewing hidden files and
folders to see them. Open Windows Explorer and click Tools>Folder
Options>View and enable there or use Control panel>Appearance and
(something - I forget)>Show hidden files and folders or open WIndows
Explorer and enter

%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Outlook

in the Address bar. Click Go. See extend.dat. Now enter

%AppData%\Microsoft\Outlook

in the Address bar. Click Go and see outcmd.dat

 

[joeydee]

Thanks, this old post fixed my brand new problem.