Slow response when making Word the active window

[mwilson]

Greetings,

Here are the relevant computer details

Core Duo 3.0 Ghz
1 GB of RAM
Windows XP w/ SP2
Office 2007 Volume License edition

The problem is being experienced with Microsoft Word 2007. Opening and
working in the application is fine. However, once another window is
made active, switching back to Microsoft Word generates 50% CPU usage
for about ten seconds, during which time Word is unresponsive. There
don't seem to be any relevant event log entries, and I found no ACCESS
DENIED errors for registry or file requests using some of the
sysinternals apps.

I have tried both a repair and a re-installation of Microsoft Office
with no change. When Word is started in safe mode, the problem
disappears. Others have described the same problem here: http://
tinyurl.com/yool28

Does anyone have any other ideas that I could try in tracking this
down?

Thanks!

 

[jimmuh]

It's odd that only Word would be affected. The first thing that popped into
my mind was the possibility that some type of monitoring activity
(anti-virus, anti-spyware, etc.) might be involved. If I were you I'd consult
with others reporting the same problem. Try to limit the consultation to
those who are experiencing the exact same issue with the same version of Word
on the same OS, if possible. Otherwise, too many variables may have to be
considered.

Among the people with the problem, Word 2007, and WinXP SP2 (and all
updates) in common, I'd want to know:

1. What monitoring software is installed and running? How is it set up --
with heuristics active?

2. What type of Word / Office installation is present on the system. (Is
everything set up to run from the hard drive?)

3. Do the documents being opened in Word have anything in common, like size
/ macros?

4. Is the problem the same or different with an "empty" instance of Word
opened?

5. Is there any possibility at all that some or all of you have fallen prey
to one of the FOUR recently disclosed (last couple of months) Microsoft Word
zero day exploits? There have been no patches released for any of them. I'm
not sure that Word 2007 is susceptible to them, but I am sure that its
susceptibility had not been disproved the last time I perused a security
newsletter (this morning). One or more of them are Trojan-droppers, and that
type of compromise just might cause a sudden increase in activity of the
compromised application every time it was made the active app. In that case
if you had the Task Manager processes tab showing you might, or might not,
see a new process being generated as Word was brought to the foreground.

6. How do you have your OS's virtual memory configure? Letting Windows
manage the pagefile, or did you change the settings? (This one's a bit of a
stretch. I'd expect pagefile configuration issues to affect most apps, not
just Word.)

7. Do you have any Office plug-ins in common?

Offhand, those are the things that come to my mind, and I'm sure there are
tons of other possible points of commonality that might affect or cause such
behavior under some circumstances. I hope you'll keep after it until you nail
it -- and then let us know about it. I know stuff like this can really be
really frustrating, and I hope you get it resolved.

 

[mwilson]

7. Do you have any Office plug-ins in common?

That was it, actually. The Adobe Acrobat 7 plug-in was not uninstalled
after the upgrade. The two affected users both had this plug-in
installed. After removal and replacing it with the Microsoft plug-in
for PDF creation, the problem has not returned. Many thanks.

 

[jimmuh]

I'm glad you got it figured out!

And you're welcome, for what little I did. After all, if I made enough
guesses, one of them was bound to work out!

;-)

 

[aleywwu]

Hi -
I'm having this same problem with lags in switching between Word
windows and also have Acrobat 7.0 Professional installed. I'm wondering
which plug-in was causing the problem and how to go about uninstalling
it? Any help would be incredibly appreciated.
Thanks much.

 

[jimmuh]

Well, I think that mwilson was suggesting that the problem was the Adobe
Acrobat 7 plug-in that was causing the problem. You might want to call Adobe
support for advice on dealing with this since it could be their software that
is implicated. I don't know the history of operating system and Office and
Acrobat (and other) software installations on your system. The order of
installation (and removal) can be VERY important -- especially if an
operating system upgrade has been involved.

 

[dbs4248]

I intend to install the window word