open/close Word97 applications very slow

Recently I've found that opening and/or closing a Word97 application takes many seconds. I have Windows 95, 200Mhz cpu, 3.2Gbyte hard drive (don't laugh, I know it's small, but it's half empty!) I also have 64Mb of RAM, if that's any help.

This situation happened a few years ago, then it seemed to clear up, don't know why. Now it's back, and any words of wisdom would be appreciated.

Thanks,
grandpa

 

Is Outlook installed? Is FindFast enabled (check under MSCONFIG's startup tab)?

 

This may be of help....

OFF97: Opening and Closing Programs or Files May Be Slow

 

Thanks to brett and PLansdowne for the replies. I checked an application called MSInfo32, which shows all applications running, and FindFast is not running. By the way, what is MSCONFIG? I can't find anything by that name. Re Outlook, I uninstalled it from Office97 a long time ago because I don't use it. I did read the MS support article suggested by PLansdowne, and I wonder about the statement that the problem may still occur even if Outlook isn't running? Maybe I should re-install Outlook, follow MS's workaround for the problem, and then uninstall Outlook again?

grandpa

 

Cick Start - Run and type MSCONFIG. Click the Startup tab and you'll see a list of programs which load at boot.

 

Yes, the problem can occur without Outlook running.

 

I tried start-run-MSCONFIG and got an error message saying it couldn't find it. Don't know why, but it doesn't matter, I have Startup Cop which lets me control the programs which load at boot, and FindFast does not.

I'm going to try installing Outlook and following Microsoft's workaround and see if it helps. Will let you know what happens.

grandpa

 

Outlook does not need to be uninstalled and reinstalled. You simply need to uncheck the items under the journal tab. Have you tried that yet?

 

No, I can't open Outlook because I already uninstalled it months ago because I don't use it. I thought I might just re-install it and do the journal tab thing and see if that helps?

I believe that since Outlook is not even installed at this time, the problem probably has nothing to do with Outlook. But....who knows....it's worth a try.

grandpa

 

Just so you know, for future reference, you don't have MSCONFIG because it wasn't part of WIN95, it started with WIN98.

 

Well, after doing some experimenting, it seems that the culprit slowing down Word 97 is not Outlook. It's McAfee Virus Scan! If I temporarily disable Virus Scan, then Word opens and closes quickly. Any comments?

Thanks,
grandpa

 

If you have McAfee set up to "scan everything all the time "...whatever McAfee calls that, "Active Shield" or something similar...it scans every file every time accessed...including program .exe files. So the program, in this case Word, is going to wait while it's scanned before it can finally open.

I have Office 2000 and winword.exe alone is 10 megs. It takes a while to scan something that size.

You could try poking around in McAfee's preferences (may be called optiions) and see if there is anything you can do to change that behavior.

 

Thanks for the reply, Miz. What I don't understand, though, is that the scanning (it's VShield) doesn't seem to affect the opening or closing of Excel files. Both Word and Excel on my system are each about 5.5 Mbytes. Anyway, for now, until I get a new computer and system, I'll either live with the delay, or temporarily disable VShield to open Word.

Thanks,
grandpa