Word and Excel documents are slow to open

[yarmus]

A few minutes after starting the computer, my Excel and Word documents take
more than two minutes to open. Is this a hardware problem?

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

Are they slow only when you first start the computer? I find that programs
in general are slow to open when I first start up because, even though all
the startup apps appear to have loaded and there is no hourglass, there are
still bits of my firewall and AV loading in the background, and they seem to
hog the resources. Once they've fully loaded, everything is plenty zippy.

If *all* documents are slow to load (even when Word is already open), this
could be an AV problem, too. If you are running Norton AntiVirus and haven't
disable its Office Plug-in, you need to do so.

 

[yarmus]

Thanks Suzzane. I know how to disable Norton, buy where is the office plug
in? That must be the issue because they are actually slower (minutes!) about
5 minutes after I start the computer. I do use Norton. Please tell me if I
need to disable it completely when I need to open an Excel or Word document,
or if i can just find the plug in and deal with the problem that way. Jim

 

[Suzanne S. Barnhill]

1. Open Norton AntiVirus (right-click on the Systray icon and choose this
option).

2. Click on the Options button at the top of the dialog.

3. In the Options dialog, click on Miscellaneous (menu on the left)

4. Clear the check box for "Enable Office Plug-in."

5. OK out and close NAV.

Disabling the plug-in does not compromise your security provided you leave
Auto-Protect enabled, and the plug-in is notorious for causing problems (not
just slow starting) in Word.