Word 2007 files take forever to open in Vista (was: Will an SSD help?)

[dencorso]

Well, medians should be preferred, not only because they are easier to calculate, but mainly because they eliminate the influence of outliers (i.e., they are robust). And, since here we've got pretty noisy data (due to intervening processes), they clearly represent better the "true" value.

Er... Of course, Pilate's "What *is* truth?" question applies here, so let's settle with "statistic truth", whatever that may be.

In any case, JorgeA's values for "just 2 on" should be remeasured, because they are too surprising, in view of the rest of the data. Would you please do it again, JorgeA?

[BlouBul]

Making sense of this fruit salad is not easy Maybe medians is better

(I actually used both to confirm the trend)So as long as we use the same two for comparisons we can't go too much wrong (famous last words, I know)

What remains surprising is that the opening of files from outside Word is normally faster than from inside Word And that for JorgeA it is 10% faster with settings on than off.(both with median and average)

@JorgeA. Can you please open the file with first settings on and then off from outside Word.

Edited October 12, 2010 by BlouBul

[JorgeA]

What is even stranger is that both the average and mean of your test with settings "ON" is better than your tests with settings "off" Did you test it from outside Word.

Name:			BlouBul		Dencorso	JorgeA		puntoMX		BlouBul2
OS:			Win7 x86	WinXP		Vista x64	Win7 X64	Win XP
Processor		Core2Duo 1.8	AthlonXP2 2.33	P-dual 2.2	AMDX4 3.8	Celeron 2.4
Memory			3 GB		3 GB		4 GB		8GB		256MB
AntiVirus		Nod32 AV4	AVG 2011	Norton 360	MSE		Kaspersky IS 2010
Office Version:		2010		97		2007		2010		2007

All 3 off (s)		20 (20*)	14(13*)		187		?		45
Only 2 on (s)		40		13		261(28*)	?		100(90*)
All 3 on (s)		100 (90*)	X		173		67(67*)		186(192*)

BlouBul,

I just ran the 7 loadings series for the C# file, from OUTSIDE Word. Here are the times:

0:25

0:27

0:27

0:27

0:27

0:25

0:26

Then, before doing anything else so that the PC would be in the same condition, I re-ran the series for the same C# file, from INSIDE Word, and here are the times for that:

2:24

0:25 (not a typo)

0:27 (ditto)

2:28

2:19

2:46

2:21

All of these were done with the three grammar/spelling checks ON. The times are from clicking on the file till the page counter shows the last page.

Yup, I am as confused as you and dencorso.

One thing I've noticed is that, for the fast times, the page counter stays unchanged showing nothing, and then changes in a flash to "Page 1 of 519." Whereas for the slow times, the page counter inches along in 3-page increments (Page 1 of 3, Page 1 of 6, Page 1 of 9, ...) and then, at an unpredictable point, the numbers start zooming up fast till they reach the last page.

Let me know if you can glean anything out of this.

--JorgeA

Edited October 12, 2010 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

@JorgeA: Now I'm confused. Your results make no sense, JorgeA, with all due respect.

Which file are you using for your most recent tests, the one proposed by BlouBul or your original big file?

dencorso,

I've been using the C# file that BlouBul proposed.

As I said to BlouBul, I'm just as befuddled about this as you. Check out the newest dataset in my post to him, and see if they help to sort things out. I'll be curious to hear what you have to say.

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

What happens if you run it with those checks off from outside Word?

[JorgeA]

@JorgeA. Can you please open the file with first settings on and then off from outside Word.

BlouBul,

O.K., here are the values for the series opening the C# file from outside Word, with the three settings OFF:

0:27

0:25

0:26

0:27

0:24

0:25

0:25

Hope this helps!

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

In any case, JorgeA's values for "just 2 on" should be remeasured, because they are too surprising, in view of the rest of the data. Would you please do it again, JorgeA?

dencorso,

Will do. Give me an hour or two as I need to get some lunch and attend to other things. The computer won't be doing anything in particular in the meantime, so it shouldn't be opening or closing processes that could screw up the comparison.

Do you want me to open the C# file with two settings on, from inside Word or from outside Word?

--JorgeA

Edited October 12, 2010 by JorgeA

[BlouBul]

Try opening your original file from outside Word.

Edited October 12, 2010 by BlouBul

[TheReasonIFail]

I've tried to real all the posts here but I may have missed it...

Office 2007 fully updated?

Tried uninstalling Norton 360?

[JorgeA]

Try opening your original file from outside Word.

BlouBul,

Before I start, and possibly do it the wrong way -- With how many grammar/spelling settings turned ON do you want me to open the original big file from outside Word?

There are so many different variables to juggle!

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

I've tried to real all the posts here but I may have missed it...

Office 2007 fully updated?

Tried uninstalling Norton 360?

Welcome to our knotty problem!

Thanks for the questions. Yes, Office 2007 is fully up to date.

The changes made to the system by Norton 360 are so extensive, that I'm ruling out uninstalling it as an option. Even if that turned out to be the source of the problem, I'm not willing to spend the time eradicating it completely and then reinstalling and re-registering it all over again. I truly would rather wait a couple of extra minutes for the occasional huge Word file to finish loading, than go through that process again.

However, I suspect that N360 is not really the issue. The test file we've been working on is taking less than half a minute to load if I click to open it from outside Word, while if I'm already inside Word it's taking from 2 to 5 minutes to finish loading. Whatever is going on, seems to have to do with how Word handles the files in one scenario vs. the other.

Glad to have another mind working on this!

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

Try opening your original file from outside Word.

BlouBul,

Before I start, and possibly do it the wrong way -- With how many grammar/spelling settings turned ON do you want me to open the original big file from outside Word?

There are so many different variables to juggle!

--JorgeA

It didn't make a huge difference in the test file, so feel free and experiment. I can't remember if we ever tried it with the original file, and since we got such good results with the test file, I thought it would be worth a try. So try it with the settings off(last setting) and then with the settings on.

Edited October 12, 2010 by BlouBul

[BlouBul]

Name:			BlouBul		Dencorso	JorgeA		puntoMX		BlouBul2
OS:			Win7 x86	WinXP		Vista x64	Win7 X64	Win XP
Processor		Core2Duo 1.8	AthlonXP2 2.33	P-dual 2.2	AMDX4 3.8	Celeron 2.4
Memory			3 GB		3 GB		4 GB		8GB		256MB
AntiVirus		Nod32 AV4	AVG 2011	Norton 360	MSE		Kaspersky IS 2010
Office Version:		2010		97		2007		2010		2007

All 3 off (s)		20 (20*)	14(13*)		187(25*)	?		45
Only 2 on (s)		40		13		261(28*)	?		100(90*)
All 3 on (s)		100 (90*)	X		112(26*)	67(67*)		186(192*)

JorgeA's computer is now officially the fastest with all settings enabled from outside Word! Why?

Also the average (obviously helped by the 2 good times)of his last test for opening from within Word (112 vs 173)is a lot better and is now just slightly slower than mine (although the median is slightly slower than previous (140 vs 137))Why was only 2 times good?

One thing I've noticed is that, for the fast times, the page counter stays unchanged showing nothing, and then changes in a flash to "Page 1 of 519." Whereas for the slow times, the page counter inches along in 3-page increments (Page 1 of 3, Page 1 of 6, Page 1 of 9, ...) and then, at an unpredictable point, the numbers start zooming up fast till they reach the last page.

I also noticed this trend. It can take more than 80% of the time to do less than half the pages, and then suddenly it accelerates and do the rest in 20% or less of the time. Something must be interfering in the beginning, and can be the reason for the two good times (less interference).

Edited October 12, 2010 by BlouBul

[dencorso]

Whatever it is, that happened after Word 97. My 97 loads the file, waits about 4 seconds and then the page counter appears and moves steadly until reaching the last page, then stops... regardless of how do I open the file.

The averages and the medians point to the same fact: JorgeA's Word 2007 has a strange behaviour in two aspects:

It's much slower when opening from the inside (counter-intuitive fact)!

And "all 3 on" from the inside is the fastest setting, not the slowest (counter-intuitive fact)!

I'm baffled, but I don't think any further tests are needed at the moment. We already have the facts.

Now we got to muse over them. Slowly.

BTW: Does Norton have any kind of Office add-on or plug-in that can be temporarily disabled through it's control interface (no, I cannot be more specific, because I'm asking about an application I've never even seen running up close)?

[JorgeA]

Whatever it is, that happened after Word 97. My 97 loads the file, waits about 4 seconds and then the page counter appears and moves steadly until reaching the last page, then stops... regardless of how do I open the file.

The averages and the medians point to the same fact: JorgeA's Word 2007 has a strange behaviour in two aspects:

It's much slower when opening from the inside (counter-intuitive fact)!

And "all 3 on" from the inside is the fastest setting, not the slowest (counter-intuitive fact)!

I'm baffled, but I don't think any further tests are needed at the moment. We already have the facts.

Now we got to muse over them. Slowly.

BTW: Does Norton have any kind of Office add-on or plug-in that can be temporarily disabled through it's control interface (no, I cannot be more specific, because I'm asking about an application I've never even seen running up close)?

dencorso (and @BlouBul),

Sorry I turned out to be out of touch today. I am up against a Monday deadline for yet another large project, and it'll be hard to get back in here for quality troubleshooting till then.

But to answer your question, Norton 360 does have an option to scan Office documents as they're opened. Having had experience with that feature on my Win98 tower and Norton Internet Security, I made sure to make that one of the first things that I turned OFF when I first installed N360 on the Vista. All the tests you've seen, have been with that virus check disabled.

And indeed, my PC does seem to be behaving in inconsistent and even surprising ways.

One other bit of news: the 1TB external HDD arrived today.

But I'm not sure that I'll be able to log on regularly over the next few days. I'm promising Monday...

Thanks for continuing to investigate this weird issue!

--JorgeA

Edited October 13, 2010 by JorgeA