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Office 2003 Word & Excel shortcuts slow to open
I have a client site running about a dozen PC's, all running XP Pro, SP3, Office 2003 SP3. Recently, in the last three weeks, these machines began experiencing extremely slow opening when initiating shortcuts of Word and Excel files. This is not universal, sometimes they open with a typical delay, 3 to 20 seconds, where at other times, the delay can be up to 2 minutes. This applies whether the files are opening from a local drive or a share on the server.
I have reviewed obvious issues including Anti-Virus, running Norton A/V 2006 which I both deleted as well as upgraded to 2009 with no effect. The laptops run Norton Internet Security 2007, which also was upgraded to 2009 without any impact.
I have also looked for obvious issues at the server NIC, and there are no errors being recorded on the switch either for the server or PC ports.
I have checked for Spyware on select PC's and nothing other than a few cookies. I have also run netstat -a looking for calls to unknown devices with no results. I've cleaned up printer configurations including deletion of ports no longer used.
The one scenario which is very unusual is that my laptop, running XP Pro SP3, Office Professional 2003 SP3 which I connected to the common share at this clients site on Friday did not experience the delay in opening files even when I placed shortcuts on my desktop.
Lastly, if I open either Word or Excel and then drag the shortcut into the app, the files open nearly instantaneously, much faster than any other fashion.
I am at a loss although it seems that when I search on this issue that I am by no means the only one experiencing this issue. It also appears to me that this issue may have been created by Microsoft's patches either on XP or Office 2003.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thx!
I have reviewed obvious issues including Anti-Virus, running Norton A/V 2006 which I both deleted as well as upgraded to 2009 with no effect. The laptops run Norton Internet Security 2007, which also was upgraded to 2009 without any impact.
I have also looked for obvious issues at the server NIC, and there are no errors being recorded on the switch either for the server or PC ports.
I have checked for Spyware on select PC's and nothing other than a few cookies. I have also run netstat -a looking for calls to unknown devices with no results. I've cleaned up printer configurations including deletion of ports no longer used.
The one scenario which is very unusual is that my laptop, running XP Pro SP3, Office Professional 2003 SP3 which I connected to the common share at this clients site on Friday did not experience the delay in opening files even when I placed shortcuts on my desktop.
Lastly, if I open either Word or Excel and then drag the shortcut into the app, the files open nearly instantaneously, much faster than any other fashion.
I am at a loss although it seems that when I search on this issue that I am by no means the only one experiencing this issue. It also appears to me that this issue may have been created by Microsoft's patches either on XP or Office 2003.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thx!
Microsoft OfficeMicrosoft ExcelMicrosoft Word
Last Comment
Cory Jensen
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cojensen,
Sounds good, hopefully the updates will help, however I think that there might be some kind of configuration issue, but it might resolve itself, given the updates are in place (basically I am saying, I am not sure, but hopeful)!!!
Regards,
Kevin
Sounds good, hopefully the updates will help, however I think that there might be some kind of configuration issue, but it might resolve itself, given the updates are in place (basically I am saying, I am not sure, but hopeful)!!!
Regards,
Kevin
ASKER
After allowing some time for the site to run without any changes as well as gathering feedback from the user's at the site, the problem has not gone away. There are a couple of machines where the delays have either significantly improved or the user's have gotten used to the timeframes. On the other hand, there are users who the problem has continued if not gotten worse.
One common element, if the MS Office 2003 application is open, ex: Excel and the shortcut is drug into the application, the file opens nearly instantly, NO DELAY! The scenario comes from opening a shortcut or double clicking on the file. The delay even occurs if the application is open on the desktop and the shortcut/file is double clicked.
Any additional thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated!
One common element, if the MS Office 2003 application is open, ex: Excel and the shortcut is drug into the application, the file opens nearly instantly, NO DELAY! The scenario comes from opening a shortcut or double clicking on the file. The delay even occurs if the application is open on the desktop and the shortcut/file is double clicked.
Any additional thoughts or feedback would be greatly appreciated!
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ASKER
In addition, I found that one Dell laptop had a corrupted TCP/IP stack and found other help on the Internet to clear all links from the ...\Recent folder along with removing all old Printer ports.
Did not find any ONE issue, but multiple issues across different machines.
Thanks!
Did not find any ONE issue, but multiple issues across different machines.
Thanks!
Thanks for the feedback. There has not been a change as to the server or mapped drive. The server and shared files are provided by a v9 Novell Linux Small Business Suite running Samba.
I've made updates as suggested in the link to several machines and will allow them to run and see if there are noticeable results.
The problem did not appear to be consistent. I'd make a change and open a couple of files via shortcuts with excellent response then the next file things would be back to extremely slow. The relative difference was significant, fast files opening within 10 seconds vs. same files opening in 70+ seconds.
I'll provide an update within 48 hours!