Why is Outlook 2007 much slower than Outlook 2003

[adam_in_utah]

Its very difficult to support a company when all the employees do not like
the office suite. People are asking all the time why is office 2007 slower?
I have to grasp for an anser saying something about more features, but alas
they aren't satisfied. Sure they have large pst and sure they check 3
different calendars. But no bad pluggins at all. Does anyone have a good
answer for when the executive secretary is complaining because her outlook is
so much slower than 2003. She shouldn't have to change her work habbits like
checking one calendar at a time or delete all here emails. She didn't have
to before. Next thing you know the executives are going to be coming down on
us asking why we went to Office 2007. Anyone have an answer?

 

[K. Orland]

Solution 1: Rename or delete outcmd.dat, extend.dat, views.dat and
frmcache.dat. Outlook will recreate these files as needed.

Solution 2: Create a new PST if you use one. Although the Outlook 2007 PST
is essentially identical to the PST format new to Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007
writes additional data to the PST.

Solution 3: Create a new profile. No need to delete the old profile just
yet, just make a new one to see if this resolves anything. If you upgraded,
then it's highly recommended you create a new profile.

Solution 4: Disable Outlook Setup Add-in (Cyberlink). This is the Instant
Office add-in on Dell computers that have Media Direct installed. This
add-in is responsible for converting meeting requests to recurring meetings.

There are some other potential issues that may slow Outlook down as well:

Instant messenger. The fix is to disable the link to Instant Messenger on
Outlook's Tools, Options, Other tab.

Network connectivity issues when you are using mapped network drives,
including slow networks or inaccessible mapped drives. The fix is to uncheck
the box for the dialog to always ask whether to open/save the attachments or
disable mapped drives.

Alternative input support in Office. This allows you to use speech or
handwriting instead of typing. Disable alternative input following
instructions in How to turn off the speech recognition and the handwriting
recognition features in Office: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=823586

Other options are to archive, run disk checking tools like chkdsk, scandisk
and defrag. There is also the option of running detect and repair from the
help menu. If a PST is in use, run the inbox repair tool. If there is a
desktop search program installed, get rid of it.

 

[Brian Tillman]

Its very difficult to support a company when all the employees do not
like the office suite. People are asking all the time why is office
2007 slower? I have to grasp for an anser saying something about more
features, but alas they aren't satisfied. Sure they have large pst
and sure they check 3 different calendars. But no bad pluggins at
all. Does anyone have a good answer for when the executive secretary
is complaining because her outlook is so much slower than 2003. She
shouldn't have to change her work habbits like checking one calendar
at a time or delete all here emails. She didn't have to before.
Next thing you know the executives are going to be coming down on us
asking why we went to Office 2007. Anyone have an answer?

Why would you upgrade to a version of Outlook you hadn't thoroughly tested
before upgrading? Your executives are right to "come down" on you.

See if something here helps:
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/ol2007/slow.htm

 

[David]

Solution 1: Rename or delete outcmd.dat, extend.dat, views.dat and
frmcache.dat. Outlook will recreate these files as needed.

Solution 2: Create a new PST if you use one. Although the Outlook 2007 PST
is essentially identical to the PST format new to Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007
writes additional data to the PST.

Solution 3: Create a new profile. No need to delete the old profile just
yet, just make a new one to see if this resolves anything. If you upgraded,
then it's highly recommended you create a new profile.

Solution 4: Disable Outlook Setup Add-in (Cyberlink). This is the Instant
Office add-in on Dell computers that have Media Direct installed. This
add-in is responsible for converting meeting requests to recurring meetings.

There are some other potential issues that may slow Outlook down as well:

Instant messenger. The fix is to disable the link to Instant Messenger on
Outlook's Tools, Options, Other tab.

Network connectivity issues when you are using mapped network drives,
including slow networks or inaccessible mapped drives. The fix is to uncheck
the box for the dialog to always ask whether to open/save the attachments or
disable mapped drives.

Alternative input support in Office. This allows you to use speech or
handwriting instead of typing. Disable alternative input following
instructions in How to turn off the speech recognition and the handwriting
recognition features in Office: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=823586

Other options are to archive, run disk checking tools like chkdsk, scandisk
and defrag. There is also the option of running detect and repair from the
help menu. If a PST is in use, run the inbox repair tool. If there is a
desktop search program installed, get rid of it.

I had problems with my Outlook 2000 being veeeeery slow after I archived. I
renamed the outcmd.dat file as suggested above and now my emails open faster
than before. That was the only file I renamed.

 

[adam_in_utah]

I appreciate all the responses. I have searched high and low to find how to
make Office and Outlook faster. The bottom line is we did do testing with
100 + employees. In general the testers said it was slower. We thought ok,
thats fine its slower but doesn't seem painfully slower. So we moved on. Let
me explain from an employees point of view. I understand all the fixes out
there. We installed a clean install. We made the employees go in and redo
all of there customized settings. On top of this now they have to endure
slower office and outlook. Why should we have to apply a bunch of Patches
and fixes? this is office 2007 not office 1997. My main question hasn't
been addressed. From an employee standpoint, they don't care about all the
hotfixes and whatever they have to do. Office should work out of the box.
Microsoft says you only need 256 mb of ram and 500 mhz processor. We double
those specs. I would imagine that our company is not any different than the
typical 1000 employee company. How do you explain to an employee that office
2007 is better than 2003 when they say its slower. We have applied the sp1
for office. I must admit for a long time I just blew the employees off
thinking they just complaining. But in reality, the office is slower now and
thats not acceptable.

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

But in reality, the office is slower now and thats not acceptable.

Then your alternative is to revert to Office 2003.