How can I get microsoft office to load faster

Question

Sometimes I am on the run and need to check my email quickly, but Outlook loads really slowly, as does the rest of office. Is there any way I can speed up this load time (for all of office)?

OS: Vista

Version: Office 2007

CPU: Intel Pentium Dual Core 2.0 GHz

RAM: 4 GB

Hard drive: 160 GB SATA hard drive (5200rpm)

Answer 1

A few things -

Try loading Process Explorer and taking a look to see if there are any peaks - especially at IO and CPU at the time of loading as this may reveal what is slowing down the launch.

It could be Antivirus, I remember a old version of Norton used to add over 10 seconds to the load time of Office. Office Anti Virus is different to many on demand scanners and even if you disable the Active scanner component, it may still be scanning on Office start.

Apart from that, click on the "orb" in the top left and click "program name" options in the bottom right. Go to the Add-In section and see if there is any that can be disabled.

Another thing to try if you just want to disable them all quickly to test if it is that, hold down the Ctrlkey next time you start Word (or most office programs), this should go in to safe mode.

If these methods do nothing, I am a bit surprised about your problems on the other office programs, but Outlook seems to always take ages to start if you have quite a few messages... Most people in Offices simply do not close it (Sorry if using a laptop as I know this part is not a solution).

Answer 2

Also, if you're on an exchange server (ask your network admins if you don't know) it may be possible to check your email without using outlook.

I don't know the precise details, but our exchange server has a webmail interface (which is pretty rich and supports most features), and is quicker to start than Outlook if you're in a hurry. (I've just googled, and I think it's officially called "outlook web access" here are the best links I could find in 2 mins: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook/HA010860351033.aspx http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/OWA%5FExchange%5FServer%5F2003.html )

Our exchange is also available via IMAP, mostly for people with iPhones etc to use while they're on the go, but you could use it with any lightweight email client I would guess. Again, speak to your admins, as they might have to set it up (or just let you know the access details if they've already set it up).

Answer 3

Improve your hard drive read time. :-)

http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=17381.msg154448

Answer 4

Is it the startup-time you are referring to? In that case, never turn it off. You got 4gb ram, use them.