my file save as in excel and word is very very slow when I am online..BUT...when I am not online there is no lag at all?
does anyone have any ideas?

Tory.

This happened to me when a shared network drive died. I fixed the problem by simply removing the connection to this drive. Go to My Computer/Network Places and click "Extras" pull-down menu (sorry, using German version of Windows and dont remember English headings) and then "disconnect network drive" or whatever the real english heading is. I deleted the "broken" connection to the shared drive and this resolved the problem. Apparently, when doing a "Save As" or "Look Into" etc, Windows searches for the broken drive for a while (which causes a hang) and then after 40 seconds or so gives up.

I have done some research on this and from my understanding Office Applications are slow saving in a WAN environment because Office is using CIFS protocol during the Save As process.  Because CIFS is very chatty on a LAN it is a non issue but when latency is introduced it can cause very slow save times.  Microsofts fix for this is to use Distributed File System and Replication. (KB313937).

A good workaround for this is to use a FileCopy macro.  For my situation I had users save to a local storage near my Metaframe servers then use a File Copy macro I created.  I assigned the Macro to a toolbar button.  It reduced user time by several minutes.

Have to agree with the previous comment that unobtainable network places definitely produce a hang in the system as does mapped network drives that are no longer obtainable. Delete the connections and the save as functions normally.

I disconnected my drive that corresponded to my SD memory card slot on my PC. Word's "save as" works as normal now. Kinda sucks tho that I'll have to use that after each time I use that drive!

I was searching for an answer to problem my new PC was having when saving files in Word. Our IT people reconfigured how I sign in to one of our network drives. It's normally disconnected. Reconnecting to that network drive solved the slowness problem.

Thank you so much!!! Disconnecting a network link that was discontinued fixed this for me too!

BIG help - You are my hero!

I did Start/My Computer and looked at my network drives. There were two things listed that started with "memory_card on hp...". I think they are related to my HP printer -- a profoundly irritating piece of equipment. They both said they were disconnected but I went to Tools/Disconnect Network Drive and disconnected them again. Now my Word files save at a normal speed again. THANK YOU!!!

Yes ..disconnecting two decomissioned network drives solved the issue.

It worked for me. This little nugget of info folved my exact problem. Thanks!

Solved the problem. Drag is that I have network drives from home and from work. I wanted to keep them connected so they are ready for either location.

Yes I can confirm deleting a non-exitent drive mapping has cured my problem. Previously when trying to navigate directories on local or network drives it was taking 10 minutes (yes 10 minutes!) per directory level. This was hapenning in all MS office applications when trying to open, save or attach files. Having just deleted a non-existent drive mapping it now refreshes the directory structure instantaneously. Thanks! I'll now tell my IT department who have failed to fix this for me and were suggesting they needed to re-build the PC!

This worked for me also.

Thanks

Many thanks for this information. It was driving me nuts.

I have a total of two batch files, homenet and worknet. Each one uses an argument, on or off, to dictate whether to map or unmap those particular drives. A bit of a hassle, but it works.

I disconnected drives that did not work - for whatever reason it was, and this also solve my problem. I did not find this blog until I had several months of frustration not being able to figure it out. I found this blog to post my results and WHHOOOO - everyone found the answer.

Just keeping the posting up to day for the new year. this solution of a drive not being connected worked for me too. thanks!

I emailed my IT 'holery than thow' administrator about this problem. The new problem is that he does not answer emails!!!!!!!!!! I disconnected the poorly mapped drive he put on my computer and all is great now.

I was facing real slow down problem on network computers especially when I do File-Save As in Word, Excel, etc. I found this link from google and it fixed my problem right away. I just had to go to my computer and remove disconnected network drive because recently I had renamed some of computer names on the network so some of the client workstations were still looking for old disconnected computer names. Thanks guys.

I disconnected everything in my network places and have no mapped drives, but any time an application tries to pop open a file window to eith open, save, or whatever, it is always very slow.

If I disable my wireless connection all save as functions are normal. When the wireless connection is enabled then the save as function is extremely slooooow.
This occurs with or without firewall protection. Any suggestions?

Turn Auto correct off. (Careful other features are turned off)

I had this problem once before. I was using a wireless router and installed office 2003. I was advised that the problem was connected to a network setup.

I forgot about the problem and tried the router again. The problem is back and I forgot he fix.

If anyone can assist, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

I am at a loss - I have tried everything! Removed mapped drives, printers, registry hacks nothing is working.

Think I might ask Bill himself...

Could this problem be related to fast indexing on the hard drive being enabled? Just a shot in the dark.

Thank you for the other tips.

Regards,

Keith

Could this problem be related to the fast indexing feature. I can't remember off the top of my head where the setting is. I believe if you right click on your "C" drive under my computer it is in the properties some where.

Just a shot in the dark.

Regards,

Keith

I write word document diary at work and suddenly I had this problem saving a document takes a long time. I tried to save as local disk.. Save as rtf and back to doc... Removed disk mappings... No Help.
But then I realized that it could be hyperlink causing this, I use hyperlinking to another documents and pictures and sometimes to the network resources, and it was one hyperlink to a network resource which was not working. I removed it and now saving is fast again.

PH

I clicked on My computer tools and disconnect network drive. I then selected all the disconnected Network drive and it removed few network drive but it improved the performance.

thanks for the tips.

Ureka!! Yes, disconnecting network drives no longer in use does the trick. Thank you, and I was about to reinstall everything.

Thanks!

Awesome workaround !
It works perfectly.
Thanks.

Thanks for the tip! It worked great!

All I have users who connect to a VPN occasionally to access server files. The problem is, that the users don't always have to be connected.

The easy solution is to disconnect the mapped network drives, however, my users are not computer savy enough to set them back up again. So deleting is not a feasible option.

Is there another solution for this problem without disconnecting the drive? I have also unchecked the search for network files and folders in the view option under My Computer.

Thanks in adavance for any advice.

The problem that really bothers me is the "e-mail to" menu item. When I scroll past it, it often lags like crazy. Any ideas what I can do about that?

When I open an existing Word Doc from the document itself (before opening the program MS Word) it takes 10 seconds.

I am not networked.

I have no COM Add-Ins

The problem occurs with all Word or Excel Documents.

i alsp reinstall office

i remove all antivirus from my pc but same problem

i also uncheck DDE-box.but same problem

what should i do pls suggest me as soon as possible through my mail

I tried something else and it worked (read below)!

I recently connected an HP F2180 all-in-one printer to my computer and since that time Office XP Professional documents have been very sluggish, especially when saving as and printing. I tried disconnecting the network drives as suggested above and got a message stating, 'you have no network drives to disconnect'. Thus, saving and printing were still very slow. I was able to fix my problem by going to My Computer - Tools - Folder Options - View tab - and then under the 'Files and Folders' subfolder, I unchecked 'Automatically search for network folders and printers' and it seems to have fixed the problem. Now there is no delay when I try to 'save as' or print. I haven't noticed any bad side effects and it may actually prevent my printer from trying to reinstall the printer software/driver every time I restart my computer. Hopefully this is useful to others out there.

I tried something else and it worked (read below)!

I recently connected an HP F2180 all-in-one printer to my computer and since that time Office XP Professional documents have been very sluggish, especially when saving as and printing. I tried disconnecting the network drives as suggested above and got a message stating, 'you have no network drives to disconnect'. Thus, saving and printing were still very slow. I was able to fix my problem by going to My Computer - Tools - Folder Options - View tab - and then under the 'Files and Folders' subfolder, I unchecked 'Automatically search for network folders and printers' and it seems to have fixed the problem. Now there is no delay when I try to 'save as' or print. I haven't noticed any bad side effects and it may actually prevent my printer from trying to reinstall the printer software/driver every time I restart my computer. Hopefully this is useful to others out there.

I tried something else and it worked (read below)!

I recently connected an HP F2180 all-in-one printer to my computer and since that time Office XP Professional documents have been very sluggish, especially when saving as and printing. I tried disconnecting the network drives as suggested above and got a message stating, 'you have no network drives to disconnect'. Thus, saving and printing were still very slow. I was able to fix my problem by going to My Computer - Tools - Folder Options - View tab - and then under the 'Files and Folders' subfolder, I unchecked 'Automatically search for network folders and printers' and it seems to have fixed the problem. Now there is no delay when I try to 'save as' or print. I haven't noticed any bad side effects and it may actually prevent my printer from trying to reinstall the printer software/driver every time I restart my computer. Hopefully this is useful to others out there.

I discoverer that I had a music CD in one of my CD drives that wasn't being read, and the system stalled trying to read it. Took the CD out of the drive and that cured the problem for me. Not sure why the music CD couldn't be read? Anyway - this blog was helpful to see the range of possible similar problems with eiter disconnected drives or non-functioning drives. This is the kind of stuff that can drive us nuts without a group solution.

That was great! I was going to reinstall operating system. But I added RAM instead. While that helped in general it did not solve this problem. This hit the nail on the head! Thanks.

Greetings,

Thank you very much for the posts, I was about to reinstall. I removed my mapped network printers and Word and Query Analyzer are now saving perfectly again.

The printers are at my office, so when working from home unless I am on the VPN I do not have access to the printers.

Best Regards,
Me

I read all the posts and only have the slow problem when I'm wireless. If I turn off wireless, eveything is fine. If I'm working this is a pain. I have several networked drives, but I use them and don't want to disconnect and reconnect.

I then read the post from Jeff posted below about unchecking the "automatically search for network folders and printers" in XP. I can't find the same function in Vista. When I get to folder settings from "my computer" in vista, that option isn't there. Anyone konw where to find it?

------------------------------
Something else worked!
I tried something else and it worked (read below)!

I recently connected an HP F2180 all-in-one printer to my computer and since that time Office XP Professional documents have been very sluggish, especially when saving as and printing. I tried disconnecting the network drives as suggested above and got a message stating, 'you have no network drives to disconnect'. Thus, saving and printing were still very slow. I was able to fix my problem by going to My Computer - Tools - Folder Options - View tab - and then under the 'Files and Folders' subfolder, I unchecked 'Automatically search for network folders and printers' and it seems to have fixed the problem. Now there is no delay when I try to 'save as' or print. I haven't noticed any bad side effects and it may actually prevent my printer from trying to reinstall the printer software/driver every time I restart my computer. Hopefully this is useful to others out there.

I had multiple network drives mappings that were not accessible when on a different network (I'm a laptop user). I know I didn't always get the hang even though I had those mappings in the past. I removed some of the drive mappings as I was assuming one may be the cause of the problem. I could always re-add them again.
Low and behold after a couple of mappings were disconnected the response was back to normal.

As I switch servers in and out in our repair business, I had 12 net drives mapped to equipment in my testbed that no longer exist. My testbed computers never experienced the problems due to their membership in the domain. My "outside the domain" system just mapped drives to the other computers to copy software, copy logs, monitor anomalies, etc. Thank you for such an obvious solution. I removed all network drives that are no longer available, and my "outside" system now boots to a usable state in about 3 minutes, as it did before I put it in service as a company machine. It was trying to access non existent net drives during login. The Login screen would always come up quickly . I enter my credentials, and wait about 12 to 15 minutes for the desktop to appear. Removing the dead end net drives took it to about 3 minutes as I said before. Please do not be concerned about the 3 minutes. 1 minute of the login is used up by security measures to secure a datalink for encrypted redundancy of the link itself.

Bottom line is: Thank you for pointing out the obvious. Sometimes even the experienced get muddled in the details and can not see the true source of the problem.

Greg

Another idea:
After disconnecting the mappings create a shortcut (e.g. on the Desktop)
to the specific (network) location.

Now you can Save file As > Click Desktop icon > click on shortcut.
Best of both worlds! It stays fast ...

Only thing is that last time I ran into a password protected network drive problem, the shorctut would not connect properly to it. So far I haven't found a solution yet.

thanks so much for the tip about the mapped drives. I had a mapped drive to my Virtual PC and without the VPC running, would get the delay when attempting to Save As. I disconnected the network drive and problem solved.

RG

After being frustrated for a week, I fixed the Not responding in "Save as".
FIX: Open My Computer, go to Folder Options, Click on View, Uncheck "Automatically search for Network Folder and Printers". DONE FIXED, Very happy.

Great comments, however I disabled my network drives and still cannot get the microsoft office Save Function to respond. I have a new HP and there is not a function to use the other recommendation to uncheck the " Automatic search for network folder and printer. Appreciate any other recommendations.
thank you for your assistance

Thank you for this site! After disconnecting the network drives, I still could not get the Save Function to work. However I read the email above regarding the Music CD. Thought this was strange that the Save Function would be impacted due to a CD. However when I checked my CD Drive...there was a photo CD in the player.

AMAZING....I took it out and magically my Save Function for word started working!! Also it was very fast as compared to what it was performing like before.

Not sure why this happened....However thanks for this great site!!
Sherry

I had a shortcut on my desktop with the following target:

file://xopsmid2/orgpub$/BC.htm

This caused a slow save when wanting to access the desktop folder from any program to save a file.

I saw in Wxcel thatit was trying to contact this address when wanting to access desktop folder to save.

Does anyone know why this happens?

I had a network drive mapped to an old server. Disconnected the drive and "Presto"!

You are a Time and Life Saver !!!! Thank you so very much. I was ready to send my CPU to the moon :)