Problem with Office 2003

[Boog]

I work in a hospital and run XP Pro on a 3 GHz computer over a large network.
I recently had my Office applications upgraded from Office 2002 to Office
2003 and have regretted it after encountering annoying problems.

Word and Excel, my two most commonly used apps, are the biggest problems.
The main problem is speed. Everything seems to crawl in Office 2003. These
problems didn't exist in Office 2002. When opening a file in Word, a small
50Kb file can take 3+ seconds to load. Something that small should be almost
immediate. If I have a Word file open and use the arrow keys to move the
cursor within the document, the cursor moves at a snails pace (2 lines per
second). When saving a 1-2Mb file in Excel, it will take 10 seconds.
Something that small should be almost immediate. If I open a video
attachment from Outlook, it will take 5 seconds before WMP opens and begins
loading the attachment. None of these problems existed in Office 2002. What
are possible reasons for the slow down?

While I am at it, my last beef is the open box in Word 2003. MS took out
the "Favorites" button on the left. It was a convenience.

Boog

 

[Dian D. Chapman, MVP]

It sounds like you need to do a little updating on your computer as
well. Did you upgrade your video driver when you upgraded to the more
powerful software? If you'e still using the old video driver, it may
be having a hard time keeping up.

Have you defragged your hard drive lately? That'll speed things up.

Have you cleared your TEMP folder lately? That'll give you more
resources to work better.

Do you have any addin's that might be getting in the way and causing
Word to decipher those before it opens?

Here are some TechTrax article to provide more info on the above...

Video...
Maintaining Your Computer
http://www.mousetrax.com/maintain.html

Defrag...
What the Heck IS Defragmenting Anyway and Why Do I Need To Do It?
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=472

Temp...
Maintaining Your Computer
http://www.mousetrax.com/maintain.html

dd-ins...One of Word's Most Common Problems
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=282

As for the Favorites...add it back in. Right click on the Places Bar
and choose Small Icons (or remove one you don't want). Go find the
folder you want to add (i.e., favorites) and select it. Then...along
the top/right of that same OPEN dialog in Word, click the down arrow
on the TOOLS icon and choose ADD TO PLACES BAR.

Dian D. Chapman
Technical Consultant, Microsoft MVP
MOS Certified, Editor/TechTrax

View Hurricane Humane Updates: http://www.mousetrax.com/pets.html
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[Boog]

Dian,

Thanks for the reply. I will certainly look into the video driver and
Add-in issues. I am most certainly on top of the defrag and temp files. I
will give these ideas a try when I get to work in a few hours.

Thank you very much for your time and exerptise.

Boog

 

[Dian D. Chapman, MVP]

No problem...good luck!

Dian ~