We have a Windows XP Home system networed to an XP Pro system through a Dlink 4 port router.

The Pro computer has the shared folders and the Home system accesses them through a shared folder.

When the Pro system opens Word 2000 and tries to navigate to the shared folder, it can take 16 seconds for the list to populate with the file names. The folders do contain LOTS of files...upwards of 2000 word documents.

We have replaced the hardware (nic, cables & router) during the testing phase and nothing improved the access speed.

We have tried with Indexing both off and on. Neither setting will change the access speed.

The problem seemed to present itself when the XP machine replaced an old Win98 computer. The Win98 system had no access speed issues

We have also tested with OpenOffice Writer and the folders will populate in the standard amount of time leading me to believe that it is a Word/XP issue.

I have been led to believe that Word is loading up all of the "metadata" for each file every time the folder is accessed. Is this true? And is there a way of disabling this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.