Word (and Excel) freeze when loading if Dialer is active

[Lang]

Windows XP Home with SP2 and all critical fixes applied. Office 2003. IE 6.

Dialer "connectoid" has been created in Network Connections to dial-up my
ISP. Dialer starts automatically when IE is opened (and dials my ISP).

When a dial-up session is active, Word will not start. Splash screen is
displayed, but Word will not complete initialization. I must use Task Manager
to cancel it.

If dial-up session is not active, Word starts with no problems.

I thought the problem might be IE related, but if I open IE and then cancel
the dialer (so IE is only connected locally), Word starts with no problem.
Problem seems to be related to the dialer being active (ie problem only
occurs when an active dial-up connection is established).

I deleted the dial-up "connectoid" in Network Connections, and re-created
it. Problem still remains.

I scanned for viruses, PC is clean.

I looked at the document "Problems Opening Word" at:
http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWord.htm but it does not
address this problem (where Word will only not start when a dial-up
connection is active).

Any ideas on where to go from here would be appreciated.

 

[Lang]

I solved the problem. I'm including the solution here in case anyone else has
a similar problem. To re-iterate, the symptoms were:
* word was OK if there was no dial-up connection.
* word would not start when a dial-up connection had been established.
* the word splash screen would appear, but the application would hang at
that point (and would have to be canceled via Task Manager)

I discovered that the source of the problem was the firewall.

By disabling the firewall, I was able to make a dial-up connection and
successfully start word. So, I concluded that the source of the problem was
either a firewall rule or the firewall itself.

I disabled each of the firewall's rules, but the problem still remained.

So, I ended up uninstallng and re-installing the firewall (Norton Internet
Security 2005 Spyware Edition).