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Keith
Asked: 2010-05-04 12:30:33 +0800 CST

Double Click to open Office docs is slow, File -> Open is fast

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I have 2 unique networks. They both share similar architecture:

  • Windows 2003 SBS SP2
  • Running Symantec Endpoint
  • Running Symantec Information Foundation
  • Shared drives off a data partition
  • Clients running Office 2003 or 2007
  • Connect to file server through mapped drives

When users try to open a file from their local PC by double clicking, it will take 30-60 seconds to open. When they do File -> Open, those same documents open up almost immediately.

So far I've tried the following - CCleaner to parse the registry of outdated mapped drives - Disabled "using DDE" - Disabled A/V - Reboot

Any ideas beyond that? Figured this question belongs here instead of SU since its the same issue on different networks.

Edit Its only 1 user in each effected network that has reported it. They each have a document from the network share as a shortcut on the desktop. When they double click that shortcut, there is a delay. I haven't tested what happens if double clicking the document with excel or word open already. What I have done is opened up the document from the network within its respective program and it opens right away.

microsoft-office mappeddrive

7 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I would start with Process Monitor. Capture the stack when you try to open from the shortcut on the desktop, and then a separate capture when you open from inside the program. Compare the two and see where the differences are.

    Try adding the Lookup Wizard Add-in for Excel, and see if that changes anything. From here.

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  2. In your edit you said

    I haven't tested what happens if double clicking the document with excel or word open already.

    Test it. It could be that your users are experiencing the startup effects of Office itself. Is Word or Excel slow to startup on it's own? Are your users installing any funky Office plugins?

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  3. Check that the user's Home Folder property on their AD account is valid, if present.

    I had a similar issue which was a nightmare to troubleshoot and it turned out to be a home folder pointing to an old decommissioned file server.

    location of home folder property on AD user account properties

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  4. could it be something related to the file type association? i mean, the command line defined to open this file is calling a different application, or calling the same application but with different options causing the latency

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  5. If I understand correctly from your edit, your users have a shortcut on the desktop that points to the file like \server\share\document.doc and are double-clicking it to open the file.

    When you're in the office app, you're going file -> Open and manually navigating to \server\share\document.doc to open it.

    If this is the case, try setting the users up with a mapped drive (e.g. Z:) pointing to \server\share, and re-point their desktop shortcut so it accesses the file as Z:\document.doc

    A mapped drive should hold onto network share credentials/authentication better than manually hitting the UNC share path (\) when you want to open a file. In the case of office/word, I've experienced odd slowdowns when accessing docs directly via their UNC path.

    If it's occuring when accessed directly through the mapped drive, too... then you could check into this: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297684

    Some additional troubleshooting steps you could try: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832161

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  6. Hey Keith, have you tried running Wireshark to see what actually happens behind the scenes in each scenario? Any networking discrepancies (especially 30-60 second lags) should probably show up in there.

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  7. I had this start happening to me after I installed the newest version of Kodak Easy Share that came with my digital camera. After I uninstalled the app, my office docs started opening quickly again.

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