microsoft excel and word docs freezing up

[mflave]

when i click on any word or excel doc, it takes up to 5 minutes to open and also freezes up my whole computer for a short period of time. i have done a defrag and have run adware alert a few times(i know that probably doesn't matter). once the files open, everything is ok, but it just takes so long to open? anybody know what is going on with this? thanks for any help you can give, Mike....

 

[Tech Teacher]

Sometimes things get messed up and you can fix them by going to the Help Menu and running the "detect and repair" function. I don't guarantee this will fix it but it won't hurt anything. Also, make sure you have run your updates - they just released Service Pack 3 for Office 2003. Things tend to run smoother if you do the updates on a regular basis.

 

[mflave]

thanks for the input. i have been searching but can't find the detect and repairs function. where is that located exactly? thanks again

 

[Tech Teacher]

It is in the "Help" menu of either Excel or Word. You may need to expand your menu to find it.

 

[mflave]

thanks again. one other thing that happens is when i put in a cd with pictures saved on it. that takes a long time also. first to actually load and then when i am trying to open any of the files on the disc? do you think that is related to e'thing else?

 

[caraewilton]

Have you always had this problem or is it recent?

 

[Tech Teacher]

Sounds like you may need some more RAM. Also if the picture files are big (1MB or greater) and there are a lot on the CD, it can take a while to open, especially if you only have 256 mg of RAM.

 

[mflave]

it is pretty recent. 3-4 weeks ago i installed norton 360 and my computer went down hill from there(running very slow and choppy). i have since uninstalled the norton program, but my computer is doing some whacky stuff.

 

[mflave]

i have 512 mb of ram. i have cable access. my computer is a compaq pressario with an intel pentium 1.80ghz processer. the computer is 4-5 years old i guess. thinking i may need a new one soon? thanks for all the help!

 

[mflave]

i found it on both the word and excel. when i tried to run the "detect and repair" on each of them, it said i still had another installation already in progress and i need to complete those before i can run the "d&r" on the excel and word programs.

 

[Tech Teacher]

I am not a big fan of Norton's. It is a very invasive program that is hard to get rid of. You might need to tweek the security settings. I don't use Nortons and am not familiar with all the in's and out's but everyone I know that who has used it has had issues.
Detect and repair needs to only be run on one of the applications. It does the process for the whole package. You might try re-installing the Office suite if nothing else helps.
A last resort is to reformat your hard drive. That would be the only way to totally get rid of Nortons and you would need the setup disks that came with your computer to do that.
(We had to do that to my 73 yr old mother's laptop after she installed Nortons on top of McAfee.) If you decide that is what you want to do, you might want to find a tech-type person to do it for you. Your local school district usually has a tech dept and the techs are usually willing to do side work in the evenings for a fee to supplement their income.
Good luck!

 

[mflave]

thanks!