Word 2007 files opening slow

[frustrated worker]

I have Office 2007 on Windows XP. Computer is 2 months old, I started
noticing the problem about 2 weeks ago. (I originally thought it was caused
by the security software which was installed just over a month ago, but that
has since been ruled out.)

I have reviewed the other posts in this category and have tried resetting
the IE intranet security settings, diabling and eventually removing AVG
(Norton was never installed on my computer), running the Office 2007 install
disk again under repair mode, and also ran the Word 2007 diagnostics (nothing
found). I have also removed any programs that I installed since noticing
this problem. Problem remains.

My Word docs open slowly taking from 10 secs to several minutes to open. It
does not matter if the files a large or small, created in Word 2003 or 2007.

I have the problem trying to open from the server, from an attachment in
Outlook 2007, and also files copied to my desktop. However, not every file
opens slowly. But once it starts opening slowly more and more files are
slower to open until I am forced to either restart my computer or do a
complete shut down.

Any suggestions?

 

[L Sangree]

Do you have any links to Excel in your Word document?
If yes
Have you unchecked "Update Automatic Updates" (Office Button, Word
Options, Advanced)?
If yes
Close all your applications and start Task Manager
Open your Word Document in a small window so you can see Task Manager
You will see a new process start and stop for Excel for EVERY link
in your document which obviously slows down the opening

A Microsoft engineer confirmed for me that this is a known issue with no
known solution. He advised us to save all documents in the binary (.doc,
..xls) format instead of the new XML (.docx, .xlsx) format since we have so
many links that some of our docs take FIVE minutes to open.

Is this a problem for others? Why doesn't unchecking the update box STOP
this? Why is this STILL a problem so long after 2007 came out?!

 

[frustrated worker]

Unfortunately the documents in question have no links to Excel.
And it has not mattered what size or version the doocument (.doc vs. docx)
is. I have since uninstalled and reinstalled the entire Office suite, and
that still hasn't solved the problem.