I've found recently that Word is taking longer and longer to open and close a document, even a blank document.
I've googled the problem and I spent 3 hours yesterday trying to apply the suggestions all to no avail.
I've run detect & repair, CC Cleaner and then followed various suggestions from the Microsoft forums all of which failed to make any improvement.
I'm convinced it's a problem with normal.dat, but I don't seem to have a file named anything like that to delete and let it replace with one which isn't corrupted.
I've ticked the box to show hidden files and folders too.
I was determined not to ask for help to cure this but have to admit it has me beaten and drives me mad when I'm printing from a lot of different word documents.
Pat
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Do you mean normal.dot Pat? i.e. the 'blank' template Word opens when you fire it up.
If document opening is taking a long time then yes maybe there is an issue with this template.
I'd try and find a 'good' template on the MS Word support site and download that.
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From my experience its usually a word and windows joint effort.
If it were me, I would take it as a sign to save all my data, and reload windows and word. You would be astonished at how fast it all becomes.
CC cleaners, defrags, utilities, they really dont actually do much.
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Have you tried to defrag it? If your hard drive is very fragmented then it can slow even simple program like word down.
Do you know how much free RAM you have once Word is loaded? Word hardly uses any RAM but I am wondering if even after Windows starts up you've ran out.
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Pat has only complained about Word being slow to open. She doesn't mention the machine being slow overall.
Maybe she can report back after deleting normal.dot and letting Word recreate it.
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>> Pat has only complained about Word being slow to open. She doesn't mention the machine
>> being slow overall.
Word could be slow because of used or fragmented system resources available from windows. I would think Word is the most hungry program she uses so it could be the straw that breaks its back.
I was merely saying that a reload is guaranteed to fix it and she woul dbe suprised by how sprightly windows has become.
>> Maybe she can report back after deleting normal.dot and letting Word recreate it.
She cant find normal.dot.
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I've followed the instructions to replace Normal.dot but it hasn't made any difference at all.
One thing I noticed is I didn't get asked if I wanted to replace the old file which confirms my suspicions that I haven't got one.
De fragged monthly with My Defrag Rattle but I don't know how to see how much free ram I have.
Pat
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The reason I am suspecting a slow computer is I often get complaints that a certain program is slow. Sometimes its a fault with the program, e.g Internet Explorer with lots of toolbars but often it is due the following:-
1) A dying hard drive
2) Two lack of RAM
3) A fragmented drive.
To find out how much RAM you have press ALT CTRL DELETE all at the same time, Task Manager will load up, depending on which version of Windows you have it will either say commit charge, or physical memory, what is the figure? It will say this at the bottom of task manager.
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I have my Inbox, Normal.dot search, Word and car4play running and it says 51%
Pat
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Certainly no problem with the amount of RAM then, I am guessing you have 2GB of RAM which is more than enough.
I wonder if its a registry problem some where, I've fixed word problems by removing a registry entry but I would not advise that yet.
Is the rest of the computer running ok? Is it without a doubt just Word which is causing the problem?
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No problems with any other part of the computer.
Even Excel and Powerpoint open promptly, it is just word and if you Google the problem it seems to be a pretty common one.
It's usually solved by replacing Normal.dot but no matter how many times I search, I can't find one.
Pat
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>> It's usually solved by replacing Normal.dot but no matter how many times I search, I
>> can't find one.
How are you searching Pat?
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I assume this is still the build standard of Pat's machine:-
>>From the slow PC thread:-
Well I know it's an HP but all I can do is run Belarc and copy the results here.
I hope this works!
Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 2 (build 6002)
Install Language: English (United States)
System Locale: English (United Kingdom) HP-Pavilion FL230AA-ABU a6525.uk
System Serial Number: 3CR82304TT
Chassis Serial Number: DM0001
Enclosure Type: Desktop
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
2.40 gigahertz AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual Core
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
512 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Multi-core (2 total)
Not hyper-threaded Board: OEM_MB NARRA3 3.02
Serial Number: MS1C86R41403711
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 5.13 05/02/2008
Drives Memory Modules c,d
500.11 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
390.71 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
ATAPI DVD A DH16A6L SCSI CdRom Device [Optical drive]
WDC WD50 00AAKS-65YGA SCSI Disk Device (500.11 GB) -- drive 0, SMART Status: Healthy 3070 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Slot 'A0' has 1024 MB
Slot 'A1' has 1024 MB
Slot 'A2' has 1024 MB
Slot 'A3' is Empty
Local Drive Volumes
c: (NTFS on drive 0) 488.88 GB 389.25 GB free
d: (NTFS on drive 0) 11.23 GB 1.46 GB free
Network Drives
None discovered
Users (mouse over user name for details) Printers
local user accounts last logon
Administrator
24/12/2010 11:02:14 (admin)
comet
10/01/2011 04:30:51 (admin)
local system accounts
Guest
never
Marks a disabled account; Marks a locked account Canon MP490 series Printer on USB002
Controllers Display
IDE Channel [Controller] (2x)
NVIDIA nForce Serial ATA Controller (2x)
Standard Dual Channel PCI IDE Controller ATI Radeon HD 3450 [Display adapter]
PKB Viseo 200Ws [Monitor] (19.9"vis, s/n D140C0054000, September 2009)
Bus Adapters Multimedia
Microsoft iSCSI Initiator
Standard Enhanced PCI to USB Host Controller
Standard OpenHCD USB Host Controller Realtek High Definition Audio
Virus Protection [Back to Top]
new Group Policies
Microsoft Security Essentials Version 2.1.6805.0
Scan Engine Version 1.1.6402.0
Virus Definitions Version 1.95.3548.0
Realtime File Scanning On
None discovered
Communications Other Devices
Microsoft ISATAP Adapter
NVIDIA nForce 10/100 Mbps Ethernet
primary Auto IP Address: 192.168.0.2 / 24
Gateway: 192.168.0.1
Dhcp Server: 192.168.0.1
Physical Address: 00:22:15:07:28:15
Teredo Tunneling Pseudo-Interface
Networking Dns Servers: 208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220
AGERE OHCI Compliant IEEE 1394 Host Controller
HID-compliant consumer control device
HID-compliant device (2x)
USB Human Interface Device (3x)
HID Keyboard Device
HID-compliant mouse
Realtek USB 2.0 Card Reader
USB Composite Device
USB Root Hub (2x)
Generic volume shadow copy
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One unlikely thought - you haven't recently downloaded a whole load of fonts ?
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Nothing has changed with the specifications spamcan and I haven't downloaded any fonts.
Intensely frustrating, isn't it?
Pat
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normal.dot should be in
c:usersusername%appdata%MicrosoftTemplates but could be in the local folder after that. I can't afford Word (I use Open Office).
I will go downstairs and check on the XP machine to see exactly where the file is, my parents machine has Word 2002 on it as well.
I do think from the symptoms your original suspect Normal.dot is correct. Just been a few months since I had to remove it so no idea where it is located exactly.
Last edited by: RattleandSmoke on Tue 17 May 11 at 13:15
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Should be located here, but I can't get access to the XP machine.
/ Application Data / Microsoft / Templates
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Thanks Rattle.
Yesterday and this morning it wasn't there and searching the computer didn't find anything.
After I followed the instructions above to download another copy of it I searched again and it dound the file where you said it would be but didn't improve things.
As a long shot, I reneamed it Normal.old and then deleted it and Word is now flying:)
Thanks to those above for all your help.
I would love to know why it wasn't there though in the first place!
Pat
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Bit late now as you've fixed it, but normal.dot can get to be a very large file and make problems.
I think this only affects pre Word 2007, but when I had the older versions of Word, I kept a spare copy of normal.dot, and renamed it normal.xxx or such like. Quick bit of renaming if I had problems and away we went.
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Thanks SP, I appreciate that tip and will be doing the same now.
No more making coffee while a word document opens:)
Pat
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Word 2002 - spamcan61
