I came across a great tip regarding Outlook related to speed. I have found my Outlook 2003 gets slower and slower over time – to the point where it’s basically unusable. Slipstick has some pointers on what could be causing the problem.
And no, it can’t possibly be all of the plugins and utilities I’m using. 
#1 by Chris Maddocks at March 31st, 2005
Good comment… I’ve been wanting to get rid of the Messenger tie-in for ages.
I still say it’s your plugin collection, though!
#2 by cole garrett at May 9th, 2007
i was experiencing horrible response with outlook 2003 on a new computer with 2G RAM, etc, etc. – i did everything – eliminated the IM tie in, archived, compacted – nothing helped – then finally a dell rep said go to add/remove programs and remove the “outlook addin installer” program – BAM – outlook now flies like the wind.
#3 by Alonso at May 9th, 2007
I’ve just bought this computer, it has been working quite well, originally it came with Windows Vista and the Office 2007 Trial. I unistalled the Trial and installed my own version of Office 2003 and the computer worked well.
However, lately I’ve been experiencing a problem with Outlook 2003. It’s working really slow, when I send a message the program gets stuck for a couple of minutes and appears non-responsive. Also, when it sends and receives automaticly the whole program gets non-responsive to the point that I have to stop the application using the Task Manager. A similar problem also started happening suddenly with OneNote…
#4 by Charles at May 19th, 2007
in outlook 2003 a client of mine notices that when he selects the drop down box to select a fold that contains pics to use for attachment in an email it takes forever for it to drop down. how do you speed that up
#5 by john eastman at May 21st, 2007
5-21-07 My outlook has been slow for about two weeks. I dowloaded a windows update during that time…maybe that is the problem
#6 by John at May 22nd, 2007
Yeah, something happened in the latest windows update. Ive never had a problem with a slow outlook but now its crazy slow!!!
#7 by Matt at May 22nd, 2007
I agree it has slowed down noticeably in the last couple of weeks. If you look on process monitor its opening and closing 2 million registry keys that contain blacklisted domains (in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings\ZoneMap\Domains). If you delete these the slowdown stops, but you might not be as protected against spam\phishing\whatever. In any case it would probably be smart to make a backup of that key before deleting all 2 million entries in it.
#8 by Ryan at September 20th, 2007
For me it was the “Live!” add-on (for mapping locations) which lagged opening a dialog for between 10-30s, uninstalled using add/remove programs.
#9 by Koby at November 30th, 2007
I believe it is all because of internal fragmentation within the PST.
We are measuring fragmentatin of disks for some time now, and started doing it with Outlook.
Please have a look, because we collect maps of the data distribution in order to calculate the fragmentation level, and you may help.
http://www.disklace.com/a14outlook.htm
tnx
‘
Koby.
#10 by MindSpace at January 19th, 2008
Alonso, I am having the same problem as you. I have just noticed that Add/Remove programs lists 5 separate entries relating to Office 2007 Trial! – not just the one “Microsoft Office 2007…”. So I am going to try uninstalling these other four:
- Activation Assistant for Microsoft Office 2007…
- Business Contact Manager…
- Microsoft Office 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies.
- Microsoft Office Small Business Connectivity Component
#11 by MindSpace at February 9th, 2008
Ok, I have confirmed that uninstalling these other 4 things fixes my problems. Emails will now send, and the weird error message on loadup is gone.
#12 by MichaelH at March 19th, 2008
I had Outlook (Office) 2007 pre-installed on my Vaio laptop (trial copy) and I uninstalled it and installed Office 2003. I also was having very long send/receive times, and Outlook would also hang retrieving IMAP headers, expand lists of folders in an account, etc. I uninstalled the “2007 Microsoft Office 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies” and the long delay problems went away. It’s working much faster now.
#13 by Wasila at June 9th, 2008
I disabled the link to Instant Msngs and it’s working much faster now.
#14 by Wasila at June 9th, 2008
I disabled the link to Instant Msngr and it’s working much faster now.
#15 by Kris Johnson at June 19th, 2008
I know on my work laptop, Outlook can definitely be slow. I use the archive method a lot, but I’m not seeing much.
I find some other helpful articles here, regarding Outlook…
http://www.pcauthorities.com
#16 by Kevan at July 10th, 2008
I seem to be experiencing EXACTLY the same symptoms as Alonso (May 9th, 2007). This nis incredibly frustrating as I am only experienciong the problem on my brand new (and faster) computer. Any pointers to a resolution to this?
Kevan
#17 by Dave at December 2nd, 2008
I have a Dell xps and it has a brand new HDD (4 days old) new install of Vista Ultimate version with Office 2003. Outlook checked emails fast but if there is an email ina box even if its only 3k in size it sits there for about 30 seconds then it appears…. painfull slow… it sends emails fast no problems there…
I am using program as Administrator …. any clues ??
#18 by Phil at March 3rd, 2009
Hi
After spending a large amount of time on Outlook freezing when sending emails I finally also tracked the problem down to the following program not having been uninstalled when I uninstalled the Office 2007 software that came with the computer to replace it with Office 2003:
MS Office 2007 Primary Interop Assemblies
#19 by me at April 29th, 2009
Everyone has the problem but not one who has a solution, go figure