Microsoft Word/Excel Question

[Kori Ellis]

I have so many documents in the My Documents section that whenever I try to open a Word document or Excel spreadsheet that is in My Documents, it takes SOOOOOOOOOOOOO long for the window to even open for me to select the file.

Obviously, I'm not putting anymore documents in My Documents, but is there a way to stop this from happening? Like do I need to expand the capacity of My Documents somehow? Do I need to move some of the files out of My Documents and into a sub-directory?

And before you ask, I have plenty of room on my hard drive, etc. It just seems like my My Documents is almost "full", if that's possible.

(I hope someone understand what I'm trying to ask:lol)

Any reasonable advice is appreciated.

Thanks,

Kori

[Sapphire]

Can you just make a new folder and move some of the stuff to the new folder? Maybe try to categorize them so when you right click on the new folder you can give it a name that makes sense. I am not sure if that will help speed things up, though.

[Kori Ellis]

Can you just make a new folder and move some of the stuff to the new folder? Maybe try to categorize them so when you right click on the new folder you can give it a name that makes sense. I am not sure if that will help speed things up, though.

Yes, if I move them to a new folder, I'm sure that will help.
But why does My Documents have a limit? I'm not even using 10% of my computers capacity. It's just weird to me the My Documents can get full.

[E20]

I guess you could right click on My Documents and click Properties > General Tab > Advanced and check the Fast searching button, but chances are your 'My Documents' is too cluttered, that happens to me with movie files, try putting your .DOC's in sub catogery's and have an organizing system.

[Sapphire]

You must have a crapload of stuff in there--I've seen other people's My Documents that just go on forever. My former boss was constantly searching his because he would never name his files with something that made any sense at all. They were all sales-something or other and he would pull his hair out looking through them all. Kinda funny now that I think about it.

[Kori Ellis]

I guess you could right click on My Documents and click Properties > General Tab > Advanced and check the Fast searching button, but chances are your 'My Documents' is too cluttered, that happens to me with movie files, try putting your .DOC's in sub catogery's and have an organizing system.

I have a lot of subcategories already, but there's still a bunch of files in My Documents. I was hoping there was a way I didn't have to move them and I could just expand it somehow.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

There's not really a cap to My Documents. IT sounds like you just have a lot of stuff in there (I'd say to do the sub-directory thing as well, should speed performance).

The other thing to check is if your virus scanner is set to scan all the contents of the folder. Depending on your AV software, it may show up with some kind of scanning icon in your system tray.

Other than that, no ideas.

[Kori Ellis]

You must have a crapload of stuff in there--I've seen other people's My Documents that just go on forever. My former boss was constantly searching his because he would never name his files with something that made any sense at all. They were all sales-something or other and he would pull his hair out looking through them all. Kinda funny now that I think about it.

I have a lot but I don't think that I have more than the average person who writes everyday.

[SequSpur]

Increase your RAM, buy a harddrive with more rpms.

[dallaskd]

I have ALOT saved to my computer and not one folder has reached a capacity limit. Consider buying an external hardrive. I have an 111 GB Seagate and have 69.7 GB open.

[tsb2000]

Hi Kori, I don't know who said it, but there's no limit to the my docs folder. If there is, i haven't found it and I've got video for days on it. I also run spreadsheets that would make most people cringe. :)

Either way, I'd try all of the usual system maintenance, then running a virus and ad scanner. If all of that is done and still no luck, then I'd definitely consider more ram, or at least getting the ram chipsets checked. Those boards can go bad; that could be a cause as well if suddenly it seems like your pc is at half speed.

Good luck!

[leemajors]

i think AHF may be on to something with the virus scanner - most work with ms office, esp Norton, and the scanning can slow some apps down. do you see a delay when starting a ms office app as well, or just when you go to open a file within the program?

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

If it's not the virus scanner...

Kori, do you have your folder set to thumbnail view? Open up My Documents, go to the View menu, and see what your look is. (Thumbnail, Details, List, etc.).

If you have it set to Thumbnail view I bet that would be slow as hell because it tries to render a small preview of what the file is.

[TDMVPDPOY]

defag ur fag drive kori :D

[ShoogarBear]

How many files do you have in the top-level directory of "My Documents"?

I agree with creating a bunch of subfolders and moving everything there. I have a ton of files (probably around 5000), but they're all distributed in about 30 subfolders, each with additional subfolders, so I have no problem with the top-level "My Documents" directory.

[Kori Ellis]

Increase your RAM, buy a harddrive with more rpms.

I have plenty of RAM and RPMs.


I have ALOT saved to my computer and not one folder has reached a capacity limit. Consider buying an external hardrive. I have an 111 GB Seagate and have 69.7 GB open.

Why would I buy an external hard drive? My hard drive isn't even 10% full.


Hi Kori, I don't know who said it, but there's no limit to the my docs folder. If there is, i haven't found it and I've got video for days on it. I also run spreadsheets that would make most people cringe.

Either way, I'd try all of the usual system maintenance, then running a virus and ad scanner. If all of that is done and still no luck, then I'd definitely consider more ram, or at least getting the ram chipsets checked. Those boards can go bad; that could be a cause as well if suddenly it seems like your pc is at half speed.

Again, why would I need more RAM? My PC doesn't run slow at all - it's super fast. The only thing that's slow is it takes a long time to open the My Documents folder when I'm in MS Word or Excel.



i think AHF may be on to something with the virus scanner - most work with ms office, esp Norton, and the scanning can slow some apps down. do you see a delay when starting a ms office app as well, or just when you go to open a file within the program?

All the virus scans are done, etc. Only when I open a file within My Documents. I can open a file from any other folder and it opens right up. That's why I was asking if there's a My Documents limit and if I should move some of the files out of it.



Kori, do you have your folder set to thumbnail view? Open up My Documents, go to the View menu, and see what your look is. (Thumbnail, Details, List, etc.).

If you have it set to Thumbnail view I bet that would be slow as hell because it tries to render a small preview of what the file is.

No, it's in List View.




How many files do you have in the top-level directory of "My Documents"? I agree with creating a bunch of subfolders and moving everything there. I have a ton of files (probably around 5000), but they're all distributed in about 30 subfolders, each with additional subfolders, so I have no problem with the top-level "My Documents" directory.

Yeah, that's why I was asking if I should just move some of them.

I'm guessing I might have a few thousand documents in My Documents - maybe more. And then a few more thousand in the other directories/subdirectories.

[Kori Ellis]

For the record, I have 160GB hard drive and only about 20 GB are used.

I have 1024MB RAM.

[Kori Ellis]

Anyway thanks for everyone's help.

I'll assume that my My Documents is just "too full" and move some of the document out. Or just deal with it taking a long time to open.

[ShoogarBear]

Anyway thanks for everyone's help.

I'll assume that my My Documents is just "too full" and move some of the document out. Or just deal with it taking a long time to open.If you have 1000s in the top level of My Documents, that's probably too many. You just need to move them into a subdirectory.

Also, another thing that can slow your comp down is having too many things on the desktop, although that tends to be noticed generally, not specifically in opening one directory.

[Kori Ellis]

If you have 1000s in the top level of My Documents, that's probably too many. You just need to move them into a subdirectory.

Also, another thing that can slow your comp down is having too many things on the desktop, although that tends to be noticed generally, not specifically in opening one directory.

I only have like five things on my desktop :lol

But yeah, I guess I have to move them around. I haven't been adding things to My Documents for quite awhile, but I need to open the older files that are in there and I hate the wait.

[polandprzem]

Are you just opening the precise document from the My Documents?

Or it's slowing down everytime you want to open a word document? (A new one)

[velik_m]

Well more RAM generally helps because of caching, but i don't think it would help in your case.

I heard Norton CleanSweep can cause slow opening of "my documents".

I did notice NTFS partitions are sometimes slow to respond, which is never the case with FAT32.

My best advice is to contact Microsoft technical support, that's what you pay for.

EDIT: oh and get Total Commander (way better than Windows Explorer) :p:

[Kori Ellis]

Are you just opening the precise document from the My Documents?

Or it's slowing down everytime you want to open a word document? (A new one)

Only when I'm opening an existing document that is saved in MyDocuments. Whether it's in Excel or Word, it doesn't matter.

I've concluded that I just have too many files in that section. Everyone I've asked (on tech board) doesn't seem to think there's anything wrong - that's just how it is.

[TDMVPDPOY]

another problem could be that you have many processors running which you dont know,

hit alt+f4+ctl and the window pops up with applications running you dont even know, some of them can be turned of, and the ones you dont know just leave it or else it fucks up and needs a reboot.

icons on desktop/quickstart/system tray, the less the better cose it hogs memory and takes fuckn long booting up into windows fuckn icons....

[Fernando TD21]

I don't think this is the problem, but maybe it worths a shot:
http://www.officearticles.com/word/about_normal_dot_in_microsoft_word.htm

[TDMVPDPOY]

sorry for hijackin this thread

any of you clowns own a imacpro laptop?? with xp on it? how was the transition?

[to21]

I didn't read in detail but.....

Was it ever established that you are running Norton AV?

If so.....

You can disable Norton antivirus for MS Office applications. Open Norton antivirus, select options (you should have a split window with categories on the left and specifics on the right) under "other" is a category Miscellaneous there you will find the option to disable the "office plug in" simply un-check the checkbox, your applications should load much faster.


If not, there might be more that can be done.

[tlongII]

Kori,

Google the issue. I'm sure you will find advice.

[SequSpur]

Time for a better computer.

[ducks]

Yes, if I move them to a new folder, I'm sure that will help.
But why does My Documents have a limit? I'm not even using 10% of my computers capacity. It's just weird to me the My Documents can get full.
is it not so wonderfully that bill gates is such a retard

[leemajors]

there's always google documents!

[Kori Ellis]

another problem could be that you have many processors running which you dont know,

hit alt+f4+ctl and the window pops up with applications running you dont even know, some of them can be turned of, and the ones you dont know just leave it or else it fucks up and needs a reboot.

icons on desktop/quickstart/system tray, the less the better cose it hogs memory and takes fuckn long booting up into windows fuckn icons....

No, my memory isn't getting hogged. That's what you guys aren't understanding. My memory usage is very, very low. This isn't a problem with the memory or disk space. It's just a problem with My Documents.

[Kori Ellis]

I didn't read in detail but.....

Was it ever established that you are running Norton AV?

If so.....

You can disable Norton antivirus for MS Office applications. Open Norton antivirus, select options (you should have a split window with categories on the left and specifics on the right) under "other" is a category Miscellaneous there you will find the option to disable the "office plug in" simply un-check the checkbox, your applications should load much faster.


If not, there might be more that can be done.

No, I don't have Norton AV.

[Slomo]

If you have 1000s in the top level of My Documents, that's probably too many. You just need to move them into a subdirectory.

Also, another thing that can slow your comp down is having too many things on the desktop, although that tends to be noticed generally, not specifically in opening one directory.Best advice so far.

specially the first part (since you have an empty desktop)

Download and run ccleaner (http://ccleaner.com/) once a month. It deletes all the temp files on your PC and it helps the general performance of the PC a lot. Not necessarily the solution to your specific problem but it may help also.