ironwill96
asked on
Office documents load slowly and right-click menus are slow
I have a clients computer that I am working on and cannot seem to figure out his issue. I do not want to rework his machine (re-image it etc) as he is saying some other machines are starting to have this same issue so I want to track down the problem.
Basically, you have some word documents or excel files or what not out on your desktop. You double-click on one to open it, it takes like 30 -60 seconds to open it. Now, if I open Word itself, then do File: Open or use the recent documents list it loads instantly.
This computer is part of a Domain (university setting) and has one mapped network drive as well as a Zip 100 drive. I have tried upgrading him to Office 2k3, installed all Office and Windows XP SP2 updates to no avail. I've tried unmapping the drive, selectively turning off startup items, killing all running processes, doing disk defragmentation, checking the Event Viewer for relevant errors, removing the office plug-in and removing Symantec Anti-Virus entirely, upgrading his anti-virus to Symantec Corporate Version 10.2, none of which has helped. I've also tried logging in as different users or as the local Administrator account none of which makes any difference. The files still load obscenely slow and the right-click menu takes just as long to appear. I've also checked all the context menu items in the registry and there is only the one default item (so nothing special is trying to load when you do right-click).
The machine is a P4 2.4ghz with 1GB of ram and was behaving normally until last week. No software that I can tell from the history has been installed on the machine that would have caused this to happen last week. I also ran a spyware check using E-Widow and a full scan using 5/22/2006 definition for Symantec Corporate 10 and nothing was found for either one.
The only way i've gotten it to act normally as far as loading of office files in a timely manner is to boot into Safe Mode. I've not tried Safe Mode with Networking but I assume it probably works as well. So, there is something being loaded that doesnt load in Safe Mode that is causing this issue (but that leaves a TON of things to track down!).
Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this behavior?
Thanks in advance,
Nathan
Basically, you have some word documents or excel files or what not out on your desktop. You double-click on one to open it, it takes like 30 -60 seconds to open it. Now, if I open Word itself, then do File: Open or use the recent documents list it loads instantly.
This computer is part of a Domain (university setting) and has one mapped network drive as well as a Zip 100 drive. I have tried upgrading him to Office 2k3, installed all Office and Windows XP SP2 updates to no avail. I've tried unmapping the drive, selectively turning off startup items, killing all running processes, doing disk defragmentation, checking the Event Viewer for relevant errors, removing the office plug-in and removing Symantec Anti-Virus entirely, upgrading his anti-virus to Symantec Corporate Version 10.2, none of which has helped. I've also tried logging in as different users or as the local Administrator account none of which makes any difference. The files still load obscenely slow and the right-click menu takes just as long to appear. I've also checked all the context menu items in the registry and there is only the one default item (so nothing special is trying to load when you do right-click).
The machine is a P4 2.4ghz with 1GB of ram and was behaving normally until last week. No software that I can tell from the history has been installed on the machine that would have caused this to happen last week. I also ran a spyware check using E-Widow and a full scan using 5/22/2006 definition for Symantec Corporate 10 and nothing was found for either one.
The only way i've gotten it to act normally as far as loading of office files in a timely manner is to boot into Safe Mode. I've not tried Safe Mode with Networking but I assume it probably works as well. So, there is something being loaded that doesnt load in Safe Mode that is causing this issue (but that leaves a TON of things to track down!).
Does anyone have any ideas on what could be causing this behavior?
Thanks in advance,
Nathan
SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Disconnect any unused network drives. Windows 2000 handles these poorly.
ASKER
Sorry, forgot to say it is running Windows XP Pro SP2 on the domain without Netware (we migrated away from netware completely a few months ago). I will try the things you have listed and get back with you.
Thanks,
Nathan
Thanks,
Nathan
Also, a badly fragmented hard drive will cause cause applications to load files slowly.
We are experiencing the exact same problem. No Zip drive. Similarities between us: P4 3.2GHz w/ 1GB Ram, WinXP Pro SP2, Symantec AV (managed by an enterprise server). I print to an HP 2840 all-in-one Color LaserJet via the network (but I'm the only one who prints to it). I was having this problem about 2 months ago, and then my hard drive crashed. After I replaced the drive and rebuilt the machine, everything was fine for a couple of weeks, and I thought maybe the failing drive had been the cause. The other day, though, the problem started again! Now the Windows 2000 PC in my office is experiencing the same symptoms. I can't link it to anything I've done to the computer, and I don't know how to troubleshoot this.
Ummm - I just remember, there's also a recent MS patch which has been causing problems along these lines - i'll go find it for ya and post back here shortly...
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;280821&Product=wrd20
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=918165
Have a look at those two - might want to start on the second one first...
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=918165
Have a look at those two - might want to start on the second one first...
ASKER
Ok, got this issue resolved finally! (I work in IT for the University). Here is what the issue was on our end and this might help nhrhs hopefully as well. Our networking group has been going around and upgrading the infrastructure of our network for a while and they recently did the building in which I was having issues (like a week ago). I had another user crop up this week with the same exact issue so I was able to figure out what was common among them and track it down from that. It was the SPSS that was doing it to us, but it was because that application runs off a server we call "appserver" and when they did the network upgrade they forgot to open a path through the firewall and routers back to appserver for this building. So, because windows in the b/g was trying to resolve the shortcut to this "network installed" application, it was causing right-click menus and all office documents to load extremely slowly. Within 5 minutes of figuring out that I couldn't get to appserver and calling our networking department, they had the connection re-established and both machines that were experiencing the drastic slowdown were fixed.
So, nhrhs, you might check to see if you've got any applications installed on your machine that run from the network. If they do, see if those applications still work properly. If they don't, they might be being blocked by a firewall of some sort from reaching their destination which apparently causes Windows (oddly) to cause these other issues that wouldn't seem to be related at all to one applications network issues!
Thanks for the suggestions everyone,
Nathan
So, nhrhs, you might check to see if you've got any applications installed on your machine that run from the network. If they do, see if those applications still work properly. If they don't, they might be being blocked by a firewall of some sort from reaching their destination which apparently causes Windows (oddly) to cause these other issues that wouldn't seem to be related at all to one applications network issues!
Thanks for the suggestions everyone,
Nathan
ASKER
Nathan