[BlouBul]

puntoMX, on 25 November 2010 - 12:24 PM, said:

I don't recall the brand of your harddisk, I asked you once and you gave me an answer but it got lost here; the reason why I asked is that Acronis can be free with some harddisk brands. I use it on my, the best harddisk out there, Seagate 7200.11 (there, I said it and I have to watch my back now when I walk in the streets ).

He also uses the best hard drive, same as me and you (at least it ensures some exitement every once in a while and gives you a good story to tell )

Anyway Jorge, I have to agree with Punto, You are trying to solve a software issue by trying to add more hardware (won;t work ) . You know how I feel about Norton. I used to be one of their biggest fans (even used Norton Commander for DOS as my default file manageri once upon a time, long, long ago in the pre-windows days) and used all their products till about 2004, when I started to feel that it is consuming a lot more resources than its competitors. Then I changed to Kaspersky, and more recently to NOD32 and never had a problem with either (Punto says he is not a salesman, but he nearly convinced me now to try MSE ). If you really do not like it, you can always change back. Also with BOTH PuntoMX and dencorso (who would rather err on the side of safety), I can really not see anything going wrong. Another option (if you still do not want to try it on your PC), is to first try it on your laptop, and if you like it and got the confidence in the process, then try it on your work computer. But that's just my 0.02 ZAR.

This post has been edited by BlouBul: 25 November 2010 - 09:36 PM

[JorgeA]

BlouBul,

Here's why I'm thinking that better hardware will help. Correct me if I'm wrong (there's a good chance of that, of course ).

Back in the other thread, when I opened the original offending file in Windows Safe Mode, the average time to finish opening the file went down to 2:59, compared to -- what was it, about 3:40 or so on average when opening it in normal Windows. The dreaded Norton is nowhere to be seen in Safe Mode.

I tried opening that file three times in Safe Mode again yesterday. The times were 2:58, 2:39, 2:47. So, whatever behind-the-scenes processing is going on in normal Windows (and it may not all be Norton's fault) is adding no more than a minute to the total time, or less than one-third.

I have to think that if I upgrade my CPU, all the avoidable and unavoidable processing is going to go faster. CoffeeFiend believed that a Pentium E5500 would run 60% faster than my current E2200; it sounds plausible to say that for $30 more, an E6800 would do even better. And compared to the time (and risk) involved in repeated de- and re-installations of Office and Norton and the HDD image, it's bound to be both safer and less time-consuming.

Don't know how much of the file loading time is accounted for by processing in the CPU, but if I can shave 60% off that time, we're looking at maybe upwards of two minutes saved on the loading times, vs. less than one minute saved by obliterating Norton.

Agreed on the "resource hog" aspect of Norton products starting around 2004. Back then (and not knowing any better) I had it on my Windows 98 tower, and I can't tell you how many times my computer ground to a halt (requiring a restart) under the weight of all that stuff. But my understanding is that current versions of Norton are much lighter in their touch, and the Resource Monitor appears to confirm that on my Vista tower.

BTW, I love the Eset online scanner. I use it as a backup for Norton and Spybot, and it allows me to scan even the PCs on the network that are too old to run the scanner directly (like that Win98 tower).

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

Hi Jorge,

Here's why I'm thinking that better hardware will NOT help. Correct me if I'm wrong .
Back in the other thread, when you opened the original offending file in Windows 98 on your ancient dinosaurish Pentium I, it still opened faster than your current P4 with a lot more RAM.
When CoffeeFiend said that a Pentium E5500 would run 60% faster than your current E2200, I think he meant that the hardware related portion of the 3:40 minutes will be 60% faster. Since the Pentium I opened it in under 3 minutes, I do not think the hardware related portion is that much

I understand that you are not too keen to mess with your current *working* system. That is why I suggested to try it on your less used laptop first (since it won't be a train smash if you cannot get it immediately to work again, but only in a couple of days (although I do not foresee any problems)).

I also heard some rumours that the current Norton is a bit faster than its predecessors, but still think it is worth a quick test. It might not even be Norton, but just something in your registry that got scrambled with all the registry cleaners you ran (that is why I suggested a clean install). The beauty of a the verified working image dencorso was referring to, is that you can try all these things, with no risk If you do not like the changes, you just undo them by putting your old image back

Although it open slightly faster in safe mode, it might still be influenced by a totally mucked up registry or lots of Norton code in the registry (even though Norton is not running). It won't cost you anything (except some time) to test it that way, and if you still want to upgrade your system after that (which is always nice), you might actually see a real difference

This post has been edited by BlouBul: 27 November 2010 - 02:14 PM

[JorgeA]

Hi Bloubul,

OK, I am going to throw yet another ingredient into this gigantic mix.

I remembered that I had a couple of enormous Word files that contain only photographs. (I haven't always been as sophisticated as people think, ahem...) These are literally nothing more than collections of JPG files with no text content whatever. (Yeah, REALLY sophisticated!!) One file is 207 MB in size and the other is 160 MB. That is, much larger than the 5 or 7 MB files that we had been experimenting with. They are also each over 700 pages (one JPG per page), compared to the ~500-page documents we had before.

Out of curiosity, I just tried opening these in Word under all normal settings and conditions (meaning, with Norton running ). Each one was opened seven times. The 160MB file took 10, 15, 17, 15, 16, 16, and 16 seconds to open; the 210MB one, 14, 14, 15, 15, 16, 17, and 16. Again, as before, the measurement was taken with a stopwatch from the moment I clicked on the file's name from within Word till the moment that the number for the last page showed up in the page counter at the bottom left of the Word screen.

The difference between these files and ordinary Word documents is the complete lack of text, and of text formatting. Whatever Norton may do, it's not affecting the opening of these even bigger files. Therefore I'm nominating Word as the main candidate for the source of the slow loading as it does whatever it will do with text. And specifically Word 2007, considering that (as you reminded us) the earlier version of Word (2000) opened the offending file much faster with an ancient, plodding CPU.

How does this sound to you?

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

Do you still have your Word 2000 install disk? I'd suggest tests some on your computers and sees what happens. AFAICR your laptop has Works and not Word. Maybe we should test it with the old version of Word.

This post has been edited by BlouBul: 27 November 2010 - 03:34 PM

[JorgeA]

dencorso, on 25 November 2010 - 12:12 PM, said:

Sure, JorgeA. However, since there's no urgency, I think we should postpone my refresher course on Acronis to next month, when things will be less hectic for me. I cannot possibly help you explore the capabilities of it unless I either install it on one of my machines, or, preferebly, create a bootable CD of it and test it, Were it urgent, I'd do it sooner, but that's clearly not the case. That said, I'm OK with your decision. In any case, maybe you should get an inexpensive pendrive (say, a 1 to 4 GiB Kingston or SanDisk, not a no-brand one) so that we may populate it with files, then image it, then format it, then deploy the image freely and without fear of destroying anything of value. Think of it as a test device, just for training purposes. What do you say?

dencorso,

That sounds great! There were some fantastic sales at the stores yesterday (Black Friday in the U.S.), so I picked up a couple of pen drives. (Among other things.)

I can wait to do this till you have the time. I'm also willing to learn how to make that full, dumb image that you have talked about.

Thank you for being so patient with my trepidation about experimenting on a full HDD!

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

puntoMX, on 25 November 2010 - 12:24 PM, said:

You are learning, and so are we from you, so don't get this as an insult or so .

puntoMX,

Not insulted at all, but enormously appreciative, thanks!

Your setup that you described is interesting. I'd heard of OpenDNS, IIRC on one of the podcasts by Steve Gibson (another one who has some detractors). I will look into it further and see how it works.

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

Hi BlouBul,

In theory, I should be able to find my Office 2000 install disk.

Is it possible to install Word 2000 on my main PC without overwriting the existing Word/Office 2007 directories or (maybe more importantly) the Registry settings for Word/Office?

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

I do not think a dual install of Office 2000 and Office2007 will be a problem on Vista, but maybe we should just check that with dencorso/PuntoMX/someone else. I think it will just create its own directory under Program files and both Office versions should work, just want to make sure it doesn't disturb the registry too much (don't think so, though). The best is (if you still have both cds) to first uninstall Word 2007, and then install Word 2000. You do not need to do it for the whole Office suite, since you would then have to re-setup Outlook (which isn't difficult). Word only should be easy. You can look for your cd in the mean time, while we are waiting for confirmation

This post has been edited by BlouBul: 28 November 2010 - 02:19 AM

[JorgeA]

BlouBul, on 28 November 2010 - 01:49 AM, said:

I do not think a dual install of Office 2000 and Office2007 will be a problem on Vista, but maybe we should just check that with dencorso/PuntoMX/someone else. I think it will just create its own directory under Program files and both Office versions should work, just want to make sure it doesn't disturb the registry too much (don't think so, though). The best is (if you still have both cds) to first uninstall Word 2007, and then install Word 2000. You do not need to do it for the whole Office suite, since you would then have to re-setup Outlook (which isn't difficult). Word only should be easy. You can look for your cd in the mean time, while we are waiting for confirmation

Hi BlouBul,

Well, I finally found the Office 2000 disks and -- since nobody piped in with guidance one way or another -- tried installing Word 2000 on my Vista tower.

What a mistake that was!! I thought that maybe I could avoid registry-type problems by telling the installation program to use a new folder in drive J (a Pocket Media backup drive that I always keep in its externally accessible bay) for the Office files, as well as to "run the program from the CD."

No dice. After launching the newly set up Word 2000 (more about that later), out of curiosity I then tried to launch Word 2007 -- and I got a box saying that the program needed to be configured!?! Then I tried to open Outlook, and I got a message saying that it could not be found, and did I want to remove the link I had just clicked!

The first thing I tried was a System Restore. It went through the process, the PC started back up, all the usual startup programs came online... and then a box telling me that System Restore had failed and nothing had been changed. Uh-oh.

Next I went into the Program Manager and uninstalled Office 2000, then for good measure tried the previous System Restore, and nervously watched the computer run through its steps all over again. This time it didn't give me the dreaded failure message, and to make sure that everything worked I went to open Word 2007.

But at that point, that box about configuring Word came up again. Sh*t. Well, what else was there to do other than go on to re-install the software, I thought. So I was resigned to the whole tedious process, wondering all along what might have become of my Outlook .PST file and would I have to re-do all the mumbo-jumbo I'd had to do with my ISP's webmail server way back when.

As these anxious thoughts raced through my mind, Word finished coming back up. I clicked on the Office button, and to my surprise the list of recently opened documents was showing. Wow, everything appeared normal. So I opened Outlook, hopefully, and it too got "reconfigured;" when it was done, all my e-mail was there in all the right places, and all my settings were as before. What a relief!!!

So everything appears to be OK.

Oh yes, about the Word 2000 test. It was nice to see Clippy again... And now for the most important thing: the original, offending Word file took 26 seconds to open the first time, and 20 seconds the second time. (And that's with Norton 360 still installed and intact.) As always, that's the time from the moment I clicked to open the file from within the program, till the moment that the page counter showed the last page number. (The little book animation was still going on, but AFAIK I had full editing functionality.)

Wow. It looks increasingly like it really is Word's fault. I'm not sure I'm eager to repeat the experiment, though. It was kind of a nail-biting experience.

One last thing. FWIW, I did a single test opening of the same file in the "reconfigured" Word, and the time was 2:49, compared to the 3:20 and 3:40 or more that we've had before.

What do you think?

--JorgeA

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 01 December 2010 - 12:12 AM

[BlouBul]

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

tried installing Word 2000 on my Vista tower.

What a mistake that was!!

Serious? It sounds to me like a resounding success!!!

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

I thought that maybe I could avoid registry-type problems by telling the installation program to use a new folder in drive J (a Pocket Media backup drive that I always keep in its externally accessible bay) for the Office files, as well as to "run the program from the CD."

No, the registry changes will still be the same - just with different paths...

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

No dice. After launching the newly set up Word 2000 (more about that later), out of curiosity I then tried to launch Word 2007 -- and I got a box saying that the program needed to be configured!?!

I thought we (at least this part of we) decided to first uninstall Word 2007 before installing Word 2000

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

Then I tried to open Outlook, and I got a message saying that it could not be found, and did I want to remove the link I had just clicked!

Oops. Maybe the shortcut just changed. Either navigate to outlook.exe through explorer or maybe try repairing outlook from the cd.

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

Next I went into the Program Manager and uninstalled Office 2000

Did you install Office 2000 or only Word 2000 as recommended?

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

So I was resigned to the whole tedious process, wondering all along what might have become of my Outlook .PST file and would I have to re-do all the mumbo-jumbo I'd had to do with my ISP's webmail server way back when.

Always a good idea to backup (just copy when outlook is not running) your outlook.pst file first, although it should still be in its original place afterwards. Also if you have your username and password, it should be easy to setup your mail again (there is usually a method on their website), although theoretically that should not be necessary if you install only Word.

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

Oh yes, about the Word 2000 test. It was nice to see Clippy again... And now for the most important thing: the original, offending Word file took 26 seconds to open the first time, and 20 seconds the second time. (And that's with Norton 360 still installed and intact.)

Wow!! That is what I wanted to hear!! (Never fear when Clippy is near! ) So I guess that means Norton doesn’t interfere too much with Word 2000 (yet!)

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

I'm not sure I'm eager to repeat the experiment, though. It was kind of a nail-biting experience.

The second time is always easier Anyway with these results we have to repeat it!

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

One last thing. FWIW, I did a single test opening of the same file in the "reconfigured" Word, and the time was 2:49, compared to the 3:20 and 3:40 or more that we've had before.

Some garbage must have been removed with the reconfiguration. Wonder if a repair install will help?

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

What do you think?

Well, apart from the thoughts above, Is there any features that Word 2007 have that you will miss if you use Office 2007 with Word 2000? (I sure miss Clippy!)

It sure seems like the problem lies with Office 2007. Maybe the registry is just messed up and a reinstall / Repair install of Office 2007/Word 2007 might also do the trick.
Maybe First try to repair install Word 2007. If that doesn't work, uninstall Word 2007 and the reinstall Word 2007. And if after all that it is still slow, uninstall Word 2007 and install Clippy.

[awergh]

Yes when installing multiple versions of Microsoft Office installing the older version of Office and then the newer version works much best, Office 2000 by default will install in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office and Office 2007 by default in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12, you just have to tell Office 2007 to keep your older versions, however you can not have multiple versions of outlook which is possibly  why it disappeared when you installed Office 2000.

[JorgeA]

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

I thought we (at least this part of we) decided to first uninstall Word 2007 before installing Word 2000

BlouBul,

Silly me -- I was hoping that by doing the settings as I described (setting it up on a different drive, and telling it to run from the CD) it would avoid messing up the existing Office installation.

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

Then I tried to open Outlook, and I got a message saying that it could not be found, and did I want to remove the link I had just clicked!

Oops. Maybe the shortcut just changed. Either navigate to outlook.exe through explorer or maybe try repairing outlook from the cd.

Apparently (and happily), the reconfiguring that occurred when I clicked on Outlook served to repair the problem.

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

Next I went into the Program Manager and uninstalled Office 2000

Did you install Office 2000 or only Word 2000 as recommended?

Well, it was not entirely clear how to do that. IIRC, for the other Office 2000 programs I ended up selecting the choice to "instlal on first use," so theoretically only the programs that I tried to open would have installed, and only at that moment and not before.

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

So I was resigned to the whole tedious process, wondering all along what might have become of my Outlook .PST file and would I have to re-do all the mumbo-jumbo I'd had to do with my ISP's webmail server way back when.

Always a good idea to backup (just copy when outlook is not running) your outlook.pst file first, although it should still be in its original place afterwards. Also if you have your username and password, it should be easy to setup your mail again (there is usually a method on their website), although theoretically that should not be necessary if you install only Word.

I remember setting that up the first time a couple years ago. (Before then, I used CompuServe, which did all the heavy lifting for me.) It was a mysterious, opaque, frustrating process that I'm not all that eager to repeat! Today I'm much more familiar with computing (and e-mail) concepts than I was then, but still I'd rather avoid it if possible. Fortunately, what I did last night didn't erase the .PST file.

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

I'm not sure I'm eager to repeat the experiment, though. It was kind of a nail-biting experience.

The second time is always easier Anyway with these results we have to repeat it!

Umm... maybe!

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

One last thing. FWIW, I did a single test opening of the same file in the "reconfigured" Word, and the time was 2:49, compared to the 3:20 and 3:40 or more that we've had before.

Some garbage must have been removed with the reconfiguration. Wonder if a repair install will help?

How do you do a repair install? I found the Office Diagnostics function. Is that what you mean?

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

Well, apart from the thoughts above, Is there any features that Word 2007 have that you will miss if you use Office 2007 with Word 2000? (I sure miss Clippy!)

Hmm -- I'm not sure (other than Clippy ). Offhand, other than being able to read .docx files, nothing jumps to mind. Oh yeah, I can create PDFs right in Word without needing the full-blown Adobe Acrobat. I guess it's the sort of situation where you don't miss a feature till you no longer have it.

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

It sure seems like the problem lies with Office 2007. Maybe the registry is just messed up and a reinstall / Repair install of Office 2007/Word 2007 might also do the trick.
Maybe First try to repair install Word 2007. If that doesn't work, uninstall Word 2007 and the reinstall Word 2007. And if after all that it is still slow, uninstall Word 2007 and install Clippy.

BlouBul, thanks for hanging in there with me!

--JorgeA

[JorgeA]

awergh, on 01 December 2010 - 06:58 AM, said:

Yes when installing multiple versions of Microsoft Office installing the older version of Office and then the newer version works much best, Office 2000 by default will install in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office and Office 2007 by default in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12, you just have to tell Office 2007 to keep your older versions, however you can not have multiple versions of outlook which is possibly  why it disappeared when you installed Office 2000.

awergh,

I didn't kinow that, that's interesting. I don't think I installed an earlier Outlook last night, but then it's not totally clear what the Office 2000 installation CD was or was not doing. (Curiously, when I popped the CD into the tray and closed it, my Vista PC read it but nothing happened. It wasn't until I went into Windows Explorer and clicked on the CD drive, that the setup program launched.)

Whatever happened, it does look like I managed to undo it and put everything back to the way it was, without having to actually reinstall any software.

Thanks for joining the conversation. The thread now officially takes place over four continents. Isn't high-tech amazing!

--JorgeA

[BlouBul]

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 11:52 AM, said:

Well, it was not entirely clear how to do that. IIRC, for the other Office 2000 programs I ended up selecting the choice to "instlal on first use," so theoretically only the programs that I tried to open would have installed, and only at that moment and not before.

No If you choose install on first use, next time you try to open Outlook (which you want to be Outlook 2007), it will install Outlook 2000. Rather choose Don't install for the features you already have and do not want to replace.

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 11:52 AM, said:

I remember setting that up the first time a couple years ago. (Before then, I used CompuServe, which did all the heavy lifting for me.) It was a mysterious, opaque, frustrating process that I'm not all that eager to repeat! Today I'm much more familiar with computing (and e-mail) concepts than I was then, but still I'd rather avoid it if possible. Fortunately, what I did last night didn't erase the .PST file.

The .pst file only holds your mail (and contacts). Your mail settings is not in that file. You will need to enter that again (if you happen to fresh install Office again) Anyway, besides your username and password, that is just a three/four extra settings to add that you will be able to get from your ISP's website.

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 11:52 AM, said:

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 06:27 AM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 12:07 AM, said:

I'm not sure I'm eager to repeat the experiment, though. It was kind of a nail-biting experience.

The second time is always easier Anyway with these results we have to repeat it!

Umm... maybe!

Umm, definitely!!!

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 11:52 AM, said:

How do you do a repair install? I found the Office Diagnostics function. Is that what you mean?

AFAICR when you insert your Office 2007 cd, and select install, it will see that you have already Office install and ask you if you rather want to repair your installation.
Office Diagnostics also have that feature (not sure if it is the same, but can be accessed by typing appwiz.cpl in the Search programs and files box http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924611

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 11:52 AM, said:

Hmm -- I'm not sure (other than Clippy ). Offhand, other than being able to read .docx files, nothing jumps to mind. Oh yeah, I can create PDFs right in Word without needing the full-blown Adobe Acrobat. I guess it's the sort of situation where you don't miss a feature till you no longer have it.

There is a way to read docx files with the old office (dencorso mentioned it in the previous thread) and for Office 2007 the conversion to pdf is also not standard, you need an extra plugin for that. That plugin might also work on 2000. (just a wild guess)

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 11:52 AM, said:

BlouBul, thanks for hanging in there with me!

You're welcome. I think we are very near to solve this problem now.

My recommendations are still the same:

• Try repair
  
• If not work, try uninstall Word 2007 and reinstall Word 2007
  
• If not work, try uninstall Word 2007 and install Word 2000 with custom install and all other programs selected as DO NOT INSTALL (on same drive, you can choose a funny installation folder for the files if you are really worried)

[puntoMX]

So, still thinking of upgrading your hardware?

Sure you are but it can wait now, can't it?

Always nice to see that a f- ... messed up computer works better, hehe.

[JorgeA]

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 02:16 PM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 11:52 AM, said:

Well, it was not entirely clear how to do that. IIRC, for the other Office 2000 programs I ended up selecting the choice to "instlal on first use," so theoretically only the programs that I tried to open would have installed, and only at that moment and not before.

No If you choose install on first use, next time you try to open Outlook (which you want to be Outlook 2007), it will install Outlook 2000. Rather choose Don't install for the features you already have and do not want to replace.

BlouBul,

Well, that's the thing -- the installation program didn't seem to offer a clear choice to say, "don't install this component at all," at least not that I can remember now.

Honestly, though, I'm amazed that this ancient software even ran at all in Vista x64. When I tried the CompuServe installation CD, it flat out gave me an error message saying that it wouldn't work.

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 02:16 PM, said:

The .pst file only holds your mail (and contacts). Your mail settings is not in that file. You will need to enter that again (if you happen to fresh install Office again) Anyway, besides your username and password, that is just a three/four extra settings to add that you will be able to get from your ISP's website.

Hopefully, it won't get to the point where I have to think about redoing those settings!

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 02:16 PM, said:

JorgeA, on 01 December 2010 - 11:52 AM, said:

How do you do a repair install? I found the Office Diagnostics function. Is that what you mean?

AFAICR when you insert your Office 2007 cd, and select install, it will see that you have already Office install and ask you if you rather want to repair your installation.
Office Diagnostics also have that feature (not sure if it is the same, but can be accessed by typing appwiz.cpl in the Search programs and files box http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924611

Excellent, thanks! That doesn't sound too terrifying...

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 02:16 PM, said:

My recommendations are still the same:

• Try repair
  
• If not work, try uninstall Word 2007 and reinstall Word 2007
  
• If not work, try uninstall Word 2007 and install Word 2000 with custom install and all other programs selected as DO NOT INSTALL (on same drive, you can choose a funny installation folder for the files if you are really worried)

OK, give me a couple of days and I will try the first one, and then report back.

BlouBul, on 01 December 2010 - 02:16 PM, said:

I think we are very near to solve this problem now.

I agree. We do seem to be getting closer to the solution.

--JorgeA

This post has been edited by JorgeA: 01 December 2010 - 10:02 PM

[JorgeA]

Hey puntoMX,

I'm still tempted to upgrade the hardware and see what difference it makes, but you're right -- the original motivation is disappearing fast.

OTOH, maybe I'll wait a few months for the new Sandy Bridge processors to come out and push down the price on the i7 980X , so that then I can buy a new PC with one of those in it.

--JorgeA

[dencorso]

I had suggested to image first, then mess things up... That way you'd have some way to fall back to your original (not so good) starting point, as if nothing had happened, whenever you thought things were now worse than before, and felt like starting over. Your famous trepidation about imaging, JorgeA, obviated that failsafe, so now you have no image to fall back to. I cannot stop wondering why people prefer doing things in the least safe way possible (even when things turn out to end well)... even after seeing so many feet shot to oblivion it still doesn't quite enter my mind that such behaviour is part of human nature.
And, yes, with the Office Converter Pack (a download only available up to Dec 31st, 2010), followed by theOffice2007 FileFormatConverters Pack one can open and save all older formats, plus all new formats introduced in Office2007 from earlier Office versions (the latter officially from 2k up, but I've found out it works also for Office'97 on Win XP and later, as BlouBul mentioned).

[JorgeA]

dencorso, on 01 December 2010 - 11:33 PM, said:

I had suggested to image first, then mess things up... That way you'd have some way to fall back to your original (not so good) starting point, as if nothing had happened, whenever you thought things were now worse than before, and felt like starting over. Your famous trepidation about imaging, JorgeA, obviated that failsafe, so now you have no image to fall back to. I cannot stop wondering why people prefer doing things in the least safe way possible (even when things turn out to end well)... even after seeing so many feet shot to oblivion it still doesn't quite enter my mind that such behaviour is part of human nature.

dencorso,

You didn't know this because the issue has been on the back burner so it hasn't come up in detail lately, but... while we waited, I've been trying out the Seagate BlackArmor Backup software for one of the external HDDs I bought. Now I have two HDD images, one of them a full backup + a later incremental backup, and the other a "sector-by-sector" backup. This, in addition to the multiple traditional-type file backups in various places in and out of my computer. So I should be covered, for what such backups are worth.

Thus my concern about losing the .PST file had more to do with the PITA aspect of possibly having to reinstall Outlook and re-do all those arcane e-mail settings that I dimly understand, than with a fear of losing the data.

Of course, I'd rather not have to go through the process of restoring an image. Had I realized that the Office 2000 CD would make changes to the Registry, I wouldn't have gone ahead with it. But the setup program's seeming assurances that the programs would run off the CD (the choice that I checked off for Word) definitely threw me. Happily, it turned out that what was done could be undone, and as a result of the experience we are now pretty sure that the culprit isn't Norton, or slow hardware, but Office 2007.

As for those backups, I've decided that I much prefer the conceptual simplicity of the sector-by-sector standalone backup. I'll be doing one whole new one every month. I don't care for the complexities of the "incremental" and "differential" backup concepts -- despite all my reading, I've never felt comfortable with them, and probably never will. They simply come off to me as needlessly complicated.

A full disk image, though, I can dig -- it's a complete, all-encompassing, workable copy of the HDD at a single point in time. So I plan to do one of these each month, supplemented by file/data backups (incremental, I guess) on a weekly basis as I've been doing since last year, and deleting the older images as the 1TB drive fills up. I may even move to weekly full HDD images and dispense with all this incremental stuff altogether.

I greatly appreciate your concern, though!! And, FWIW, thanks to this practice with BlackArmor I'm now much better positioned to follow and truly learn the process that you propose to demonstrate. I'm sure that what I did can be improved on.

--JorgeA