Word 2003 hangs

[84rooms]

Hi, whenever I open a Word doc the hourglass just spins for about 30-40 seconds no matter how big or small the document. Also, if I change programs to say look at a pdf and come back to the word doc, I get another lag with the hourglass spinning and I cannot do anything in the word doc until it stops. Occasionally I get a flash of blank white space before the doc comes back and also sometimes get a not responding msg. This just started happening about a day or so ago and I don't know of anything I did that is different. I have XP Home, with all updates, and Word 2003 with all updates. It is very frustrating having to wait for the hourglass every time I switch to look at another program and come back to work. I opened Excel and it is not happening with it. Any ideas would be appreciated. I have tried looking for a solution by googling but have had no luck. Thanks for any help in advance.

[skylark53]

This doesn't sound like a Word problem to me, but something much more low-level.

I see you aren't getting many responses on this board. Have you tried theeldergeek.com? They are very knowledgeable and also quick to repond.

Good luck! That must be seriously frustrating.