[DennConn]

As I understand there are two ways to open a document/Picture/Spreadsheet/ etc....One is to start the program and then open the document. Second is to double click on the document and it will open the appropriate program........
Problem: I had to replace my C: drive as I was getting the Blue Screen of death, and heard a tick tick tick on my drive. I used Norton Ghost V 10 to back up my C drive partitions. and switched out drives and reloaded my drives with Norton. Before I had the problem when I would double click on a document for a program, the program would open almost immediately and open the document.

Now after replacing the C: drive and restoring it, I had no problems, except for a couple programs I had to re install, none of the office ones tho. Now when I double click on a document or picture, it takes an exceedingly long time to start the program and open the document. I mean in the 40 second to over a minute time range. It never used to do this. It does open the document and all is fine after that. I can start the program and open the document from the program and there is no delay it is almost instantaneous. What happened, and how can i get the response i used to get back. I like being able to double click on a document and the program executes and opens it almost instantanious.? I havn't added any programs, havn't changed any settings on the system.

It is just totally slow opening a document when i double click on it.......

On my start line i only have Zone Alarms'Norton Ghost/Spybot/Crative Volume Control, and Hardware Removal saftly.....On the Task Manager there are 55 Processes listed, but I only have one or two programs running at any one time, and even if I just open a folder and double click it still takes a long long time to open.


I have a Dell 8400, With two 300GIG hard drives, and windows XP SP2
Pentium ® 4 3.6GHz, with 2.0GB of RAM.....it is pretty fast in all other aspects of operation, and do not seem to have any problems elsewhere .....

Any ideas would be appreciated.....

Thanks
Denny

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Which Antivirus software do you have? Try disabling real-time scanning to see if it's scanning the docs as you're trying to open them. Also disable Zone Alarms.

Try a Repar Install for Office. Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Microsoft Office, Change, Repair Office.

Now try opening a document.

If no difference, please provide the version of Office you have. Have you installed all service packs and critical updates?

Is this behavior seen in all products in the Office Suite, or just a few? If few, which ones?

Is this a home computer or a work computer (with possible network resources)?

Do you have any other Windows User accounts you might log in with, to see if this behavior happens for all users? If not, add a new user, assign it to the Administrators group, sign in with that new account and try opening a document.

[piper]

Which Antivirus software do you have? Try disabling real-time scanning to see if it's scanning the docs as you're trying to open them. Also disable Zone Alarms.

Try a Repar Install for Office. Go to Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs, Microsoft Office, Change, Repair Office.

Now try opening a document.

If no difference, please provide the version of Office you have. Have you installed all service packs and critical updates?

Is this behavior seen in all products in the Office Suite, or just a few? If few, which ones?

Is this a home computer or a work computer (with possible network resources)?

Do you have any other Windows User accounts you might log in with, to see if this behavior happens for all users? If not, add a new user, assign it to the Administrators group, sign in with that new account and try opening a document.

[DennConn]

LindaGail,
I greatly appreciate the time you took to give me some Ideas. here is what I have done.
Antivirus Software is Zone labs Zone Alarm Security Suite, I keep it updated.
I turned off Zone Alarms totally and it didn't seem to make any difference.

I Have Microsoft Office Small business Edition 2003 With Business Contact Manager.
Microsoft Word 2003 (11.8106.8107) SP2
Excell 2003 (11.8117.8107 SP2
PowerPoint 2003 (11.8110.8107) SP2

I also use Paint Shop Pro 9

I believe I have all the updates for Office, as I get updates automatically. I just checked and I have been getting quite a few updates, so I think I have all the critical ones.

I did as you suggested and did a repair on both Microsoft Office and Paint Shop Pro through the controll panel.

This is my Personal Computer, no network just a connection to the internet.

I tried opening files by double clicking on the documents after i did a repair on the above programs.
All PowerPoint files open almost immediately. Have no problem with Power Point files.
Word files....some open immediately and some take from 10 to 15 seconds to open the program and the document. some that open word immediately one time, will take 10 to 15 seconds to open after i open another document. It is not consistent.
Excell files do the same thing...some are immediate and some take up to 20 seconds, one took 30 seconds, and it was not a big file.
Paint Shop Pro tends to take anywhere from 12 to 20 seconds to open regardless of the situation. It didn't do that before.

It didn't seem to matter whether I had ZoneLabs security on or off.

I have no problem opening the files from the program, it is immediate and quick.

I am still confused....but am going to keep trying. I can't imagine why this is happening....it didn't happen before I replaced the hard drive.

Ideas thoughts or suggestions, i appreciate your thoughts on what to do. and did follow them.

Denny

[piper]

Before the hard drive crashed, how many partitions did you have? Did your configure the new hard drive exactly the same way? It's possible that something in the process of double-clicking the files to open them is searching for paths that are no longer valid. I've seen this in a network environment when a share was not available.

Review this thread that deals with a similar issue. The fix for slow opening was found at this link.

Please post the results.

[DennConn]

LindaGail,
My C drive was divided into two partitions: the C: partition for the operating system, and programs, it was approximately 40 Gig, And a E: drive which I used for Data, it was approximately 200Gig. The drive in total was a 250 Gig Maxtor drive.

The drive didn't crash, rather I started getting the Blue Screen of Death, I guess it is called, and then heard Tick tick ticking in the box, which others noted might be the end of the drive. I was able to keep the drive working till I copied all of the data off the drive, and used Norton Ghost to individually copy each partition.

When I restored/ reloaded a new Segate 300Gig drive and partitioned it into the C: and E: drives i had previously, I used Norton Ghost 10 to restore each partition individually. It seemed to work well, and the system came up fine, I had to reinstall a few misc programs but not bad for completely redoing a total drive, I didn't seem to lose any data either.

I will follow your links and work on that....and will post a reply as i continue to search.

Thanks again
Denny

[DennConn]

Linda,
I think I resolved the problem...At least it seems to be fixed. I looked up the links you provided, and they seemed pretty complicated for me to attempt any changes on the Registers. So I noted I was having a little problem with my ZoneLabs Zone Alarm Security software, along with the Virus and Spyware Checker.

I un-installed both the Security software, after first disconnecting my internet connection, and also un-installed my System Mechanic software. After I re-loaded both packages, and upgraded them, I noticed that the double clicking on any document for office, and photo software, would bring up the programs almost immediately, and there is no longer a delay.

I think Zonelabs package was taking so long and was probably misset to scan every document as i clicked on it, even system resident documents. I think, but don't know...however for the moment, the system seems to be functioning pretty well. I am using System Mechanic to get rid of old files and connections as well as clean temp files.

Thanks loads for the suggestions and help I greatly appreciate your thoughts.

Denny

[piper]

Good to know. Glad you're fixed

[gunther123]

I currently experience the same problem. I have narrowed down the issue to be related to the fact that the computer was cloned using Norton Ghost and every time that a user double-clicks or right-clicks on an office document, their workstation communicates with the server that their workstation was cloned from.

When the server is up and operational, everything works fine. The right-clicking or double-clicking works as you would come to expect. If the server is down and the workstation is unable to communicate with it, the right-click or double-click on Office documents takes about 30 to 40 seconds to activate.

You can test this condition by issuing a "netstat -a" from your command prompt immediately after you right-click on an office document and you experience the delay. What we found was the IP address of the ghost server would appear and then after the delay period the connection attempt would timeout and fail. Then the right-click or double-click would activate.

I have not yet found the reason that this is happening or how to fix the problem. In our situation, whenever it happens, our users call complaining and we know that the ghost server is down or otherwise not available on the network and we just have to go back and kick it.

-Mike