I have a laptop with the followings:

Microsoft Windows XP , version 2002, SP3
Microsoft Office 2003, SP3

I started experiencing the following problem a couple of weeks ago:

When opening Word or Excel documents by double clicking on the file name it takes a long time, sometimes minutes to open the file. If I start Word or Excel first and browse to the file it is very quick to open. In addition to Word and Excel documents, if I try to open a link by clicking on the link within an Outlook message I experience the same slow opening. Same is true if I click on the a html file saved on my hard drive, again, if I open the Internet explore first and browse to the file it is quick. All these files are on my local drive.

I don’t have this problem with other office files (i.e. power point) or any other file for that matter (as far as I have noticed)

I am on a peer to peer network in the office and have connectivity to the network and the Internet trough a wireless connection. If I disconnect my wireless connection, then the problem goes away. The strange thing is that when I use the same machine at home I don’t see any of these problems even though I am connected to the Internet through the wireless router.


Here is what I have done so far with no success:

-I have added “%1” to the end of the open command in the file view option as it has been suggested on so many site
-I have unchecked the “automatically search for network folders and printers” in the folder options.
-I have disconnected mapped network drives.
-I did not try to disable MacAfee or any other program because as I said this same machine works without such problems outside my office even when connected to the Internet.
-I don’t see any resource or memory problem because while I am waiting several minutes to open the file, I can easily go to other programs and start working normally.

- Even when I have the program up and running and then double click on the file name, it is still slow.

Any help is appreciated

Did you find a solution? I was having the same issue. I am on vacation connected to the wireless at the resort. If I disconnected, Word and Excel files open fine (both 2003 and 2007). Otherwise, they would take 10-15 minutes -- no matter how I access them (from Windows Explorer, form the program, etc.). Powerpoint was unaffected. I "disconnected" from my mapped network drives, deleted the "recently opened files" lists, etc., but the only thing I could do to open the files quickly was to disconnect from the wireless network here.

The solution was to set Adobe PDF as default printer -- because my default printer was a printer on my home network. Even though I was not trying to print, Excel and Word were apparently trying very hard to connect to to my network printer.