[grumpe]

Hello all,

I am having issues with painfully slow Outlook 2003. Our outlook is running at a snails pace when flipping between e-mails, calendar and tasks.

My problem is on two Gateway machines with nearly identical set ups at home. We access one e-mail account on both machines and two other accounts on one machine each. Interestingly one of our daughters has a third profile on one machine and it works just fine. Outlook worked for all of us fine until two weeks ago. I think I have narrowed it down to the Windows updates as the cause of the problem. When I restore to a time point before May 10 everything works fine until the windows updates install. After that we go back to incredibly slow performance opening mail, closing mail, switching to calendar etc.

Background:
Gateway PC running XP
McAfee Security Center, auto updates loaded May 8

Windows XP, auto updates enabled and just got these updates May 10
Update for Outlook 2003 Junk Email Filter (KB934708)
Security Update for Office 2003 (KB934180)
Security Update for CAPICOM (KB931906)
Security Update for Word 2003 (KB934181)
Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP (KB931768)
Security Update for Excel 2003 (KB933666)
Update for Windows XP (KB930916)
Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool - May 2007 (KB890830)
Update for PowerPoint 2003 (KB933669)

If I disable them one at a time nothing changes. If I restore to a point before May 10 nothing everything is fine until the updates download.

I have tried detect and repair with now help.

I am no PC expert and am at the end of my knowledge. Any ideas?

Eric

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If you have the XP CD's I would suggest starting with sfc /scannow
go to start -> run and type "sfc /scannow" (no quotes).

This will fix windows system files that may have been damaged. I've had to do this for an outlook slowdown at work and it helped a lot.

SFC stands for System File Checker and repairs damaged system files. It will not remove updates but it will improve system performance if you've had your system in use for a while.

Which two updates do you think it was that caused the problem? I (or more likely an Uber-Geek) may be able to let you know which one it is. You may not need it, or there may be a fix for it.

[bobmad]

If you have the XP CD's I would suggest starting with sfc /scannow
go to start -> run and type "sfc /scannow" (no quotes).

This will fix windows system files that may have been damaged. I've had to do this for an outlook slowdown at work and it helped a lot.

SFC stands for System File Checker and repairs damaged system files. It will not remove updates but it will improve system performance if you've had your system in use for a while.

Which two updates do you think it was that caused the problem? I (or more likely an Uber-Geek) may be able to let you know which one it is. You may not need it, or there may be a fix for it.

[grumpe]

Just ran SFC and no change.

The crazy thing is if I remove all of the windows updates by restoring to an previous date it is fixed. I have not had time to try to isolate the windows updates to figure out which one is doing it. I assumed it would be the outlook one or the windows update.

I am going to try to set up a temp e-mail account with my e-mail account and see if that changes things. I hate to have to back up/transfer everything but no idea how to fix this and it is not a workable situation now. Just waited 20 seconds to change from inbox to calendar.

Eric

[bobmad]

Eric if it were me I's use a program like Belarc Advisor to get a complete list of all updates.

Copy that list into word or excel (just the updates) then run it again after restore. Find out which updates the rollback gets rid of. Then either post the results here and/or test each update to find the issue. Belarc is nice because it WORKS and it will give you the KB#'s so you can research/download easier.

Sorry about the SFC not helping. I did have it fix an issue like you were describing.

Edited by bobmad, 22 May 2007 - 09:39 AM.

[grumpe]

Just found this on the Microsoft forums:

"931768 is the culprit. Uninstalling that returns Outlook to normal."

Evidently a known issue for three weeks that they are working on. A work around was mentioned but have yet to find it. For now just going to axe 931768.

Eric

[grumpe]

That was definitely the problem, remove it and it is fixed.

Also found a really peculiar workaround. If you are not ready to remove the update and stop it from installing until the fix is doen you can open Outlook, wait till it is ready and then left click on Outlook today (tab on the advanced toolbar). Then go back into mail and I'll be darned if it doesn't work. The root problem is supposed to be in rendering images and text or the like. Not sure what is going on but both of our machines are usable again.

Eric