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

[puntoMX]

No, I don't hate Norton products but there are "better" options as Norton products seem a bit overactive, but that's just my 0.02. I'll just sit back and watch the show (in a good way ).

JorgeA, I see you got your "Mexican" Spanish (Slang) learned. It's just seven years of Mexico for me but I do miss the Netherlands from time to time.

Now, I'm just going to lurk around here if you guys don't mind, always nice to see what the club brings.

[dencorso]

@PuntoMX: Sorry if I came out harsh! No offense was intended. Please do keep around, things are getting "curiouser and curiouser" just at this point.

[BlouBul]

And Norton hasn't been set to scan Office files as they're opened.

I also suspect Norton. Try to exit Norton totally (or disable all protection) as Norton might still want to "protect" you against the evil office file even though you told it not to. Safe mode without Norton should also work.

Just my 0.02 ZAR (which isn't worth much, I know)

Edited September 28, 2010 by BlouBul

[dencorso]

OK. Here's why I said I don't think it's necessary to do a clean install, to test whether Norton has a hand on it. Symantec provides anyone for free the Norton Removal Tool, which does a pretty thorough job. However it removes all Norton products from the machine at once. So the downside it to have to reinstall all Norton products one wants back, after the testing, all over again. For one or two products only (and that's why I asked how many), that's feasible, and much less work that a reinstall from scratch. Now, to make clear what I think about Symantec products, it's like this: I *love* Norton Ghost 2003; I like a pretty lean install of Norton System Works 2003 up to 2005. I think all later products from this line are very much bloated... and I abhor the Norton Antivirus, which I've always seen as a big system hog. Then again, I like a tweaked installation of AVG (the paid-for AntiVirus, not the Internet Security), but it seems I'm almost alone in liking it, these days...

[JorgeA]

dencorso,

I downloaded and installed Crystal DiskMark, and ran the tests as you suggested. I'm attaching the screenshots. Let me know what you think.

I use Norton 360, and its various functions are pretty well integated into my computer: Safe Search for IE, AntiSpam for Outlook, firewall and AV are resident. I also have Online Backup. Therefore I really would prefer to leave N360 alone and wait a few minutes for a Word file to load, than to uninstall and reinstall (and re-register) it. The PITA factor just isn't worth it.

The CPU Meter normally hovers between 4 and 8 percent, with occasional spikes, when N360 is running. It's not really an intolerable drain on my resources. The earlier version that I had on my Win98 PC really was a resource hog, though.

--JorgeA

CrystalMark Screenshots.pdf

Edited September 28, 2010 by JorgeA

[JorgeA]

BlouBul,

Thanks for pitching in!

I disabled Norton Antivirus and opened the same file in Word off the RAMdisk. Load time was 2:59, compared to 3:05 when I did the same thing before disabling the AV.

Next thing to try will be doing it in Safe Mode, as you and CoffeeFiend have suggested.

Just my 0.02 ZAR (which isn't worth much, I know)

LOL

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

Have you ever tried opening the file on another computer (with a different AV) to compare the opening times?

[JorgeA]

Have you ever tried opening the file on another computer (with a different AV) to compare the opening times?

BlouBul,

That's an interesting idea.

Trouble is, my other modern computer (a laptop) has Norton 360 on it, too. I also have MS Word on three other PCs, but they are a Windows 98, a Windows 98SE, and a Windows for Workgroups 3.11. I'd be surprised if the opening times on those systems could be compared usefully to this machine.

--JorgeA

[dencorso]

Thanks! 1850% faster sequencial read and a lot more in the random read! Wow!

So it's valdated, all right!

Hence, it's official: storage device speed doesn't influence your issue at all!

And that answers your original question: No. An SSD won't help at all.

The PITA factor just isn't worth it.

I was suspecting you'd feel that way. So would I, were I in your position, too.

You might now invoke the CPU Meter, send it to the tray, open word with no document, then use the file/open menu to select your big word document, and monitor the total CPU usage during the 3 min it takes to load. Or you might not send it to the tray, find the line for WINWORD.EXE in the "Windows Task Manager" Process view, and follow the actual CPU usage of Word, during the loading. That should tell us how much of a CPU drain loading this big document is, in fact. And doing it both ways should tell us whether it's Word or other processes that are doing most of the processing.

As for trying to open your big document in the Win 98SE machine, that should be an interesting experiment, too. It's sure worth trying.

[JorgeA]

dencorso,

I just tried the procedure you described. I opened Task Manager to monitor the running processes (CPU usage is shown across the bottom).

The maximum CPU usage by Word at any given point as it loaded that file from the RAMdisk was 50%, and the highest total CPU usage reading was 60%. Most of the time both values were much lower. There does seem to be plenty of slack there.

I'll copy the file to the Win98SE notebook tonight and see what happens.

Thanks for following up.

--JorgeA

P.S. A faintly related question: If having a RAMdisk doesn't speed up the loading of a big file, then where is the benefit of using a RAMdisk? Back in the times of DOS and floppy disks I would put my WordStar files on a RAM drive, and it made a huge difference when scrolling up and down large documents.

[dencorso]

A 60% CPU usage for assembling a text document is a fairily high usage. So, probably, the best way to improve your loading times would be a processor upgrade/ Considering your motherboard, a drop in replacement at a reasonable price would be a Core 2 Duo E4400 (for about $130). More powerful processors would cost much more, and entail the need for higher speed RAM, making it too expensive to be worth it, IMO. But if you think it worth it giving a shot at it, CoffeeFiend and PuntoMX are much more knowledgeable than myself about Intel processors, and probably can give you better advice.

P.S. A faintly related question: If having a RAMdisk doesn't speed up the loading of a big file, then where is the benefit of using a RAMdisk? Back in the times of DOS and floppy disks I would put my WordStar files on a RAM drive, and it made a huge difference when scrolling up and down large documents.To get rid of internet junk without actually having to delete it. For one who reboots regularly a 0.5 to 1.5 GiB will do fine.

I use 0.5 GiB on Win XP and 1.5 GiB in Win 98SE (I have just 3 GiB RAM, and my XP is much happier with 2.5 than with 1.5 GiB available). I wrote it in more detail, with 98SE in mind, here .

[CoffeeFiend]

a Core 2 Duo E4400 (for about $130)

The C2D E4400 is actually a hair slower than his existing E2200 (around 10%; not uprising as they're both allendale, and the E2200 is also clocked faster which more than makes up for the smaller L2 cache). Seeing how it has a fairly nice ICH9R chipset he can upgrade to just about anything that still uses Socket 775.

The Celeron E3300 is around $50, and it's about 35% faster (faster but probably not enough to see a big difference);

The Pentium Dual-Core E5500 is around $80 and it's almost 60% faster (not too shabby);

The Core2 Quad Q8300 is around $140 and it's almost 3x the speed of his existing CPU if you're using all cores (twice as many cores which are about 40% faster each -- so not as fast as The E5500 in single-threaded perf). That's just about the fastest CPU you can still throw on there to get a longer life out of it which doesn't happen to be horribly overpriced for what it is.

Then you have the Q9550 and the like which is only 20% or so faster than the Q8300 but costs about $275... or the $330 Q9650 AMD has CPUs that are 50% faster than that for $100 less, and even Intel has faster i5's for $200... The pricing and availability of Socket 775 quad cores sucks. I don't plan on ever upgrading this E7500 because of that. It's literally cheaper to buy a faster CPU and motherboard with it instead.

P.S. you still haven't told us about safe mode results.

[JorgeA]

P.S. you still haven't told us about safe mode results.

CoffeeFiend,

Thanks very much for the detailed explanation!

Sorry I haven't done the Safe Mode trial yet -- work got in the way today. The available spare time was dedicated to running Crystal DiskMark and to monitoring the loading process with Task Manager.

I intend to do Safe Mode and report back as soon as I get a long enough chunk of contiguous free time. I also want to look further into the different CPUs that you discussed.

Much appreciated!

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

dencorso,

Thanks for the link on using a RAMdisk, I'll check it out as soon as things settle down a bit.

How risky a proposition is it to replace a CPU? This is my main (work) PC, so any tinkering must be of the ultra-safe kind.

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

I also have MS Word on three other PCs, but they are a Windows 98, a Windows 98SE, and a Windows for Workgroups 3.11. I'd be surprised if the opening times on those systems could be compared usefully to this machine.

It actually might be useful if the opening time is significantly less than 3 minutes on those machines, that will tell you something is interfering with it in your computer.

Safe Mode test shouldn't take a long time, probably less than ten minutes (3 min to reboot in safe mode, 1 min to open Word, hopefully a lot less than 3 min to open your file, and 3 min to reboot normally)

How risky a proposition is it to replace a CPU? This is my main (work) PC, so any tinkering must be of the ultra-safe kind.

It shouldn't be risky, as you are not near your data (your hdd), Although it is obviously recommended to have full backup. If the new chip doesn't work for any reason, you can just put the old one back. I don't think Windows will have a problem, as you only changes one component. Still think you should first test it on another machine before spending unneccessary money (although you should have some spare by not investing in a SSD) and it is always nice to get a faster computer (any excuse will do )

Edited September 29, 2010 by BlouBul