MS Word and Excel takes forever to start.

I have a strange problem in my wife's computer.
It takes a long time for MS Office programs to load.
For example Word takes about 15 minutes before I can write the first letter!
Half of that time it shows just the Word start-up window. And then, at here it is the same for Excel. I get a message about "Requesting virus check" in the lower part of word or excel windows.
My wife is running XP-pro with latest SP (3) and office package from 2002. I have also tested with other versions of the Office package, with the same result. Avira antivirus program is used. It doesn't matter if it is activated or not.
Open Office, however, runs smothly.

Any idea?

regards /Don

 

It's really probably pretty much impossible to diagnose remotely... but I'd say if it's taking that long then something is awfully messed up. Can you disable whatever causes the "requesting virus check" stuff? Perhaps that's a clue. Otherwise I have no idea. I'd use OO if that works best. A reformat would probably cure it also, but that's rather drastic. Truth is, it could be just about anything causing it.... See if you can remember back to when it first began exhibiting that behavior, and try to recall any changes you made just before that time, updates, or whatnot. That might give you another clue.

 

Thank's for your answer.
The computer is quite new (less than a year) and my wife is using it mainly, to run econmical programs on it, and some word processing.
All programs are genuine, nothing comes from the internet.
If it had been MY computer I could have understood, I'm always trying whatever shows up in my way. But my wife's?
And this problem happend at the first attempt to install MS office.
It is a HP laptop, could it be some fancy HP "feature"

Regards /Don

 

Did this just start to happen recently? If so, and if you have image backups available, you might try to restore the images to see if you have one without the problem.

I had this same problem a couple of years ago with XP SP2 and Office 2000. I spent lots of time trying to track down the problem and never got there. I wound up reformatting and reloading the OS.

 

That's not a good sign then. I would see if I could use something else, Open Office for example. If not, then you may not be able to fix it without a reformat or restore of a good image.

 

I have XP SP3 on a Compaq laptop (which is owned by HP) and run Office 2002 with no problems(very fast, word is ready in less than 5 seconds). I find puzzling what you said about "requesting virus check" I have never experienced such an alert, especially considering the first install.

If you have a 'old image' of your system, I'd use it. Unfortunately one is often left with that lingering thought that something unexplained might be hiding in the system. I hope JRViejo's advice might help.

 

Is it possible the laptop had norton preinstalled, and wasn't completely removed? I've come across norton's office plugin causing problems in the past.

http://www.computing.net/answers/office/word2k-accesses-internet/913.html
http://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/thread-1504197.php

 

Thank you all.
And especially to Yeow, it was an old Norton installation that caused the delay. After unisntall everything is great.

Regards /Don

 

I too made the mistake of getting an HP laptop,
They load it down with bloatware, but more relevabt, they usually include a trial version of Office and NIS.

Did you install a full version of Office OVER the trial version?
If so, that's likely your problem.

There are likely discussions of this, likely with suggestions on how to fix, in the usual places. I'd start with the newsgroup microsoft.public.office.setup.

Also, how is your DEFAULT printer connected to the laptop.
Word, in particular, has difficulty with network printers, but that should not cause a 15 minute delay.

 

Glad you got it sorted out! That's great news....

 

Hi Don,
Glad it's ok now & u're welcome