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Opening files over network is very slow

This is my setup

OS: Windows XP Professional SP2
Server: SBS2003
Word Ver: 2003 (including all updates)

Opening Word documents over the netowork connection takes between 45 seconds+. Once the document is open the program is very sluggish and almost impossible to use.

No other programs are slow to respond (Excel, Access running over the network are fine). The documents being opened were created in Word 2000 on the old network. I had read that it could be a template problem but even new documents created in 2003 and saved to the server exhibit the same symptoms.

On one client this problem manifests itself at all times. On the other clients this problem is intermittent.

I will not have a chance to test any theories for a couple of days but I would be very grateful if you could post some ideas for me so that i have an arsenal of things to try. I will respond to any comments though.

Thanks in advance

C

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daleoran

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GrahamSkan

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snavebelac

ASKER

Michael - thanks for those links. The first has some suggestion we shall certainly try. Fonts and printers could be an issue so we will check all that. Word has never been run from a netwrok as far as I know.

GrahamSkan - i don't think that is the problem here. we do not get any messages like those indicated in that article. thank you for looking. If you can think of anything else . . .?

It seems atrange that even files created in this version of word are slow to open sometimes. It is even more strange that the problem occurs intermittantly (sp?)

Thanks again so far

C

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Joanne M. Orzech

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snavebelac

ASKER

Thanks JOrzech - it would seem that ALL docuents open slowly, not just those with old, missing templates. This si something I think we need to rectify to prevent further problems down the line and could well be a contributing factor but even those files created in this version of word are slow to open.

Any other thoughts. the network runs just fine otherwise so I do not think it is that !!

C

Joanne M. Orzech

Well - not sure if they will help but maybe give you some ideas:

https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20996088/Office-Xp-very-slow-to-open-documents-off-the-network.html
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20591484/XP-client-4-83-Netware-5-0-slow-file-open-copy.html#8380667
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/20953687/Word-documents-open-slowly-over-network.html

snavebelac

ASKER

Thanks for the reply. I think (!!!) we have solved it. It turns out that both network browsing viae My network places and Word were slow. The solution - which I hope is permanent - was to remove all the automatically added shortcuts under the my network places folder.

A much better explanation can be found here. http://www.ss64.com/nt/slow_browsing.html

I will leav this open for a while just in case the problem re-appears but carrying out the processes on that page made an instant differerence.

The only problem we had was that registry entry specified was not present on the clients so we could not disable that feature permanantly.

Thanks for all your comments

C

Joanne M. Orzech

Well that is good news! Let's hope it doesn't rear it's ugly head again snavebelac! Just post here again if you need to.

Joanne M. Orzech

Just as a follow up - this question was just answered here: It may or may not apply to your situation but it's interesting:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21105391/Slow-Word-2003.html#12255501

snavebelac

ASKER

Thanks for the tip JOrzech

This was something we had already tried to no avail !!

BY the way, I tend to write full articels regarding things like this once they are solved to pull all this info together. Is there anywhere on here where I can post a link to help others (when it is written !!) or perhaps somewhere I can post it here ? I know I can post a link in this discussion but is there anywhere else ?

Thanks

C

Joanne M. Orzech

Not that I'm aware of snave. But I could try to find out for you.

I just read another question having the same problem. Searched for all instances of normal.dot and renamed/deleted them. Then files opened properly. Go figure.

snavebelac

ASKER

Well we have not had much luck with this so I will close this question and post another if we get anywhere and need extra help. The problem has returned and we have tried everything suggested without change. Thanks to all who commented. I will split the points for your efforts. I have accepted JorZech's answer as it was this that made the biggest difference initially....shame it did not last !!!

Thanks again all

C

Joanne M. Orzech

Thanks snave.