Double Click Word & Excel 2003 Files System Hangs Pauses Several Minutes - File Open Works Perfectly Though!

I had this exact problem before with a Lenovo T61 unit. The resolution ended up we had to get a totally new unit. I have not had this problem on any other units. The problem is basically as follows: double click on a Word 2003 file and the computer hangs. Eventually after about several minutes the file will finally open. The strangest part is that if you open word first and then do file open it works totally fine.

This is the exact problem I had on another thinkpad, and I can't seem to find any rhyme or reason. Many people reported removing the dde within tools->options and file types but that doesn't seem to fix the problem.

Although opening word first, then going file open works, this is such a pain especially when you are tyring to double click on outlook e-mails with word files attached!

I applied Windows xp sp3, along with Office 2003 SP3 and that didn't fix either. I am stumped.