Word 2003 docs take a long time to open

[Daveyh]

I support several remote users through a VPN connection. They get emailed
several Word docs each day, which have linked templates to a network drive,
and takes sometimes up to 5 mins to open. Once open, you can change the
linked template to the normal.dot, and then they open instantly. However, as
they receive several docs a day, it is very painstaking. I downloaded the
hotfix mentioned in KB823372, but it's not valid as we're on Office2003 SP3.
I have also changed the registry as suggested
ServerNotFoundCacheLifeTimeInSec entry to 10 seconds but no difference. Also
Article ID 830561 gives Workarounds of VBA scripts, but I don't have VBA &
I'm not a programmer. Any help would be gratefully received. Thanks

 

[Terry Farrell]

Do the remote users' computers 'know' where the templates are located (i.e.
on the server)? I think that if the Workgroup Templates path (under Tools,
Options, File Locations tab) is set to the location of these templates, then
the documents should open normally.

 

[Daveyh]

The templates are linked to a network drive that will take a long time to
open through the VPN. If the user disconnects from the VPN - i.e. the path to
the templates is unreachable, then the documentes open almost instantly

 

[Terry Farrell]

I've seen this before with slow VPNs. The only solution is to have the
templates located locally on each users' machine. If these are in a folder
set up to synchronise when connected to the server, the templates will
refresh when they log in over VPN or plug in when at the office.

Terry