Problems w/MS Office 2000 SBE & IE6

[PaulVarjak]

This is the situation;

I have had some nagging problems w/Word, Excel & IE 6.0 that have me stumped.

When I am in Word and try to do a print preview more often than not it takes up to 30 seconds, sometimes longer, for the print dialog box to appear. Sometimes it will stop responding altogether at which point I need to terminate it.

In Excel when I try to change the font size it takes up to 6 seconds and sometimes I will also need to terminate this program as well.

Lastly, in IE when I do a print preview it takes 5-6 seconds. Used to be 1-2 seconds.

These are the things I have noticed there may be other issues with these programs I haven't encountered yet.

Here's what I have done to try to fix my problems.

1. I ran my suite of Spyware Programs (Spybot, Adaware, Spysweeper & the new Microsoft one) also ran NAV. It appears the system is pretty much clean of spyware and/or viruses.

2. I deleted Office & reinstalled it with no change. I then deleted it again and installed it on my slave drive. Again, no change.

3. Ran DeFrag, Disk Clean-up and Chkdsk. No change.

I've looked at the processes running & my start-up and nothing jumps out at me as out of the ordinary.

I'm running XP SP2 on Dell 8200 with a P4 1.99 GHz, 512MB RAM & 120GB HD with plenty of space. The Graphics card is a Nvidia GeForce4 Ti4200.

The printer I use is a shared printer on another computer on my home network.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[expertec]

Have you tried installing the service packs for MS Office? They are available for download at http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/officeupdate/default.aspx

[PaulVarjak]

I'll will try that when I get home tonight and see if that clears it up.

[PaulVarjak]

That worked! Thank you very much. I d/l SP2, SP3 & Security Patch KB822035.

Last question; when I do a print preview in IE it takes about 6 seconds for the preview to appear is that normal? Seems a bit slow, not a big deal though.

[scuzzman]

Does the same happen in all browsers? What version of IE?

[PaulVarjak]

I Have IE 6.0.2900

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Have you tried Ccleaner ? It can make a hell of a difference, especially on a system that has been in use for a long time.

[PaulVarjak]

I will check it out. Seems similar to Window Washer.

[scuzzman]

I will check it out.  Seems similar to Window Washer.

Almost - just MUCH more effective...

[andsome]

I now run it EVERY day, and I get out of breath trying to keep up with my computer, it has gained so much speed, It's just like brand new again.

[PaulVarjak]

Hello again,

Still having problems with MS Word, Excel & IE.

Same as before, when I do a print preview in Word it takes at least 30 seconds for the Preview to pop-up. The stange thing is that it is only that way with the first time I do the print preview. Subsequent Print Previews are instantaneous.

Similarly, with Excel. Same issue as before when selecting a font size it takes 10-15 seconds for the pull down menu to appear. Subsequent actions are instantaneous.

In IE a print preview takes me 7 seconds. Is that normal. Seems a bit long to me.

It appeared that the office service packs had cleared up the problem but they did not.

Is it some kind of a memory issue? I have 512K.

Any further suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

What version of Office are you using? I remember in earlier versions there was a way of preloading certain Office modules during startup, making some Office functions to start faster. Office 8 and 9 definitely had it.

[djohn]

In Office 2000 or any version of Office there is a template called "Normal.dot" this will remain on your machine even if you remove office and install again. The old template is picked back up on install, that is why you will notice that your settings and personal details are still there after a fresh install.

It just might be this template is corrupt and needs replacing, worth a try anyway as it will not harm your application but will set office back to its default values and you'll need to set your margins and default fonts back to how you like them.

Close Office then copy the command below.

normal.dot

Do a search from your start button > Run box and paste the command in there, enable hidden files and folders, click OK and delete any and all files that come up. Reboot your PC and open "Word" the normal.dot file will be replaced with a fresh one. It may cure your problems, please let us know how you get on as we don't like to be beat if we can help it. :)

PS: How many fonts do you have on your system?

[PaulVarjak]

Thanks for the replies.

I am running Office 2000 ver. 9.06.6926 SP-3.

I checked my fonts folder and it says there are 323 files in there but I counted just under 200.

I tried deleting the normal.dot files and re-starting Word and I still had the same problem. The initial Print Preview takes in excess of 30 seconds and all Print Previews following that happen instantly.

It's really annoying if you are in a hurry to do a quick letter.

[djohn]

OK PaulVarjak. I'm not sure what to suggest next, but will do a search tomorrow plus ask a few forum members if they have had this problem.

323 fonts is fine, its only when you get around the thousand mark that it will have a noticeable slowing down on the system. Reason for only seeing 200 is probably due to system fonts being hidden from view, you can always uncheck this option from your fonts folder to see which ones are hidden.

If you have the status bar on show at the bottom of the fonts window it will show in there how many are in the folder but I don't think it counts the hidden ones, but not sure on that, will need to check.

Don't give up on this yet, I'm sure we can find the cause. :)

[Edit] I just noticed that you said 323, I read it as 233 and that is why I mentioned system fonts. I can't explain why there are over 123 fonts not showing.

[PaulVarjak]

Thanks for your determination.

Another thing I noticed is that when I do the Print Preview everything on the menu bar stays greyed out except for the following pull-down menus: Heading, Font, Font Size & Pct.

The weird thing is why does it only happen on the first Print Preview and not the following ones?

[djohn]

I found this question while doing a search, very similar to your problem, if not exactly the same.

. "Is there anything I can do that will speed up Word's print preview. What I

mean is, the first time I click Print Preview it takes quite awhile to show

up. While this is happening the button bars al almost, but not quite, gone.

Once it renders the page once print preview is fast. Possibly related; Shut

down of Word can take about the same amount of time." [End Quote]

It gives two things to check which may have a bearing on the fault.

1) Printer driver. Make sure its up to date, compatible with your operating system.

2) Graphic card driver, again make sure that is up to date and not corrupt.

I also have a feeling, but can't confirm as yet. It may be a corrupt Font that is causing the problem. This may go some way to explaining why you have so many fonts listed but cant find them.

Sorry not to have come up with anything positive but can you check both drivers please and have a think about your Fonts? Have you downloaded any Fonts recently or deleted any?

[Edit] Also found this on the Microsoft help site which seems to back up my suggestion of a corrupt font.

Word does not process the font list at startup; however, the impact of a large number of fonts may be felt at other times, such as the first time you print or preview your document. In addition, certain dialog boxes (such as the Font dialog box or the Insert Symbol dialog box) take longer to appear the first time in a session with a large number of fonts installed in a system. Furthermore, Word may use additional memory and file resources when it needs to perform some complex actions when multiple fonts are used.

I realise this is pointing to having an excess amount of fonts on your system and you don't have, but I think a corrupt font or fonts will cause the same problem.

[PaulVarjak]

That post you found sounds exactly like the problem I am having. I will see if there are updated drivers for the graphics card & printer.

The printer is not installed directly to this computer it is connected to another computer and shared on my network. Should I try deleting it from both computers and reinstalling it or just search for an updated driver?

You may be onto something with the corrupt font thing. I thought it was suspicious that the folder states there are more fonts than are actually visible upon opening it.

I did a search and found this site that has some ideas that may be of use: http://www.personal-computer-tutor.com/NNTWord.htm

[djohn]

Yes, the networking may also be the problem. Can you try removing the printer and drivers then if possible do a direct connection from the printer to the one PC and re-install the printer driver?

If that does not cure the problem then I too think it may be a corrupt font. At least I think we are now moving forward with this and on the right track for a fix. :)

[PaulVarjak]

Sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you. Here's the scoop; I deleted the network printer from my XP machine and voila the problem went away. Print preview in Word was instantaneous, same with IE. No problems with Excel either.

Next I deleted the printer from its' host machine which runs WinME (I hate Win ME!) and reinstalled it on there. I then went back to my XP machine and added the printer. And the problems started all over again.

So I have wanted a new MFP anyway so I got a new Epson CX4600 and installed it directly on my XP machine and all is well on the XP machine.

Having a problem sharing it with the ME machine. No problem with the other XP machines in my house. Just add network printer and it works. Not ME though. I'm sending another e-mail to Epson support for help with getting it to work on the ME machine.

Thanks for putting me on the right track. My previous set-up did work at one point I'm not sure why it got to the point where it would not work properly any more.