Quoted in Computerworld on Outlook slowness
I was quoted again in an article on Computerworld’s website regarding the performance of Outlook 2007. While the spirit of my comments are fairly accurate, there are a few inaccuracies in the article, and some relatively harsh words were used to describe things that I know I used softer language on. I’m sure this falls under the heading of creative license, but it makes me come off as sounding somewhat harsh towards a couple of Outlook add-ins that I love.
Here’s the section I contributed to:
Jason Clarke, who works in the technical sales and marketing department at Wenco International Mining Systems Ltd. in Richmond, British Columbia, receives about 100 e-mails daily. He said that on his PC, Outlook 2007 “hangs completely for three to seven seconds typically, and up to 20 seconds in worst cases when new mail is being downloaded.”
Turning off Outlook add-ins that he has installed, such as ClearContext Corp.’s e-mail management software and Caelo Software Inc.’s Nelson Email Organizer, “does improve matters marginally, but not nearly as much as it should,” Clarke said. “The hesitation is still very noticeable — jarring even.”
Clarke, who oversees Wenco’s e-mail system, has posted information about Outlook’s slow performance on his personal blog. He blames the problems on the new e-mail indexing engine that Outlook 2007 shares with Windows Vista.
The indexing allows searches to be done almost instantly in Outlook 2007, a vast improvement over Outlook 2003. However, the process also appears to be CPU-intensive. Microsoft recommends that users put indexing on a regular schedule instead of letting it run constantly in the background.
Now, I just want to point out that I consider ClearContext and Nelson Email Organizer to be essential Outlook add-ins, and made the point in my email to the author, Eric Lai.
Also, between the first time I spoke with him back in November for an article that came out in December, and now, I have a completely new job, albeit at the same company. I can assume some blame for that, though, since there’s no reason to think that within a few months someone would change positions. But I feel weird about it nonetheless.
For what it’s worth, here is the content of my email to Eric. To preface it, Eric linked to a few complaints about Outlook 2007 performance on the web, and asked me whether I thought the complaints were legitimate. Here is my response:
I’m struggling with how to answer your question; I’ve read the links you provided below to some of the user complaints with Outlook 2007, and while I’m certainly frustrated with the product’s performance, I’m not having the same kind of trouble these users are complaining about.
I actually wrote about my frustration with Outlook 2007 about a week ago on my personal blog in a post called Outlook Slowness. My complaint is weak compared to the others you referenced; I’m basically saying Outlook 2007 is mildly better than Outlook 2003, but that I’m using a faster PC so it’s not really a fair fight.
The specific performance issue that I face is that Outlook hangs completely for 3 to 7 seconds typically, and up to 20 seconds in worst cases when new mail is being downloaded. Turning off the Outlook add-ins that I rely on
(ClearContext and Nelson Email Organizer) does improve matters marginally, but not nearly as much as it should; the hesitation is still very noticeable, jarring even.After testing Microsoft’s desktop search product (the one that Outlook 2007 nags you to install), I came to the conclusion that it is inferior to many of the other similar free products that are available (like those from Google, X1 / Yahoo, and Colibri), and removed it from my system. But it’s worth noting that anyone that is using a desktop search product to index their email for faster searching is likely to see a noticeable performance
hit.I’m still running Outlook 2007 on a Windows XP system. I should note that when I tested it using the exact same PST file (email catalog) on Windows Vista, I found it to be noticeably snappier. Some of the enhancements that
have been made to Vista allow Outlook to load in a few seconds after a reboot, whereas on XP it can take Outlook up to 30 seconds to become usable on the exact same system. Unfortunately, I haven’t used it enough to comment reliably on the actual email download hesitation problem. In fact, I’m dying to do exactly that and see if I can ease my pain.For people that are frustrated with Outlook’s performance, Brad Meador at ClearContext posted a fantastic tutorial for ensuring the health of your Outlook mail (PST) file. At one point I was experiencing a significant overall Outlook slowdown, and following Brad’s advice helped matters greatly.
I hope this helps!
One last point I should make. I’ve put a lot of time and energy into Outlook over the years, so it may come as a surprise to some of my readers, but I finally found the ultimate solution for it. A Mac.
That’s right; I had the opportunity to choose a new laptop at work, and decided to get one that would simply help me get things done, rather that having to muck around with every last little thing. For the moment I’m using separate Gmail accounts to manage both my personal and work related email, and finding the experience very enjoyable. Gmail excels at handling very long email threads, which is something that happens in my work email very frequently.
Beyond that, I may give Apple Mail a try as an offline email client. So far I haven’t felt the need to. And it would be disingenuous of me not to admit that although I’m operating most of the time in Mac’s OS X operating system, Intel-based Macs do run Windows fine, and I have a Windows instance available to me whenever I need it. In fact, that’s where I keep my archive of emails from before the point where I decided to switch to Gmail, and it works just fine.
So, I’ve given up on Outlook for day to day work. But if you want to or have to use it, do check out Clear Context and Nelson Email Organizer. They both have the capability to supercharge the way you deal with your email, and both work fine for me under Outlook 2007. And although I do have affiliate links for both of these software packages, you’ll note that I’m not using them here. I truly think that both of these software packages are worth your time, and I don’t want you thinking that I got paid to say so.
Tags: Computerworld, Eric Lai, Outlook, Outlook 2007, Outlook slowness, Clear Context, ClearContext, NEO, Nelson Email Organizer, Mac, OS X, Gmail
Outlook Slowness
Clearly I’m not the only person in the world that has experienced slowness in Microsoft Outlook; “Outlook slow” is the second most searched-for phrase that leads people to this site, behind “eye twitch”. I have to say that although I’m somewhat happier with Outlook 2007, it’s still not as good as it ought to be. In fact, on a daily use basis, I find Gmail is noticeably snappier.
This includes when I shut off the Outlook add-ons that I have come to rely on; I know that adding things on to an application that I find to be already somewhat slow isn’t all that smart, but there’s no way I’d live without ClearContext or NEO Pro, never mind Anagram.
And in terms of Gmail, it’s not like I don’t add functionality on there too; using greasemonkey, I’m able to add on saved searches, added hotkeys and even conversation previews. But the speed difference is still somewhat astounding.
Although I’m comparing Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2003, I have to keep in mind that I’m using 2007 on a faster computer that has a true dual-core processor. So in fact, it’s probably more than likely that Outlook hasn’t gotten any faster at all between the 2003 and 2007 versions.
The worst slow-down I experience is when Outlook is actually checking my POP mail account, which is the only way that I actually receive email into Outlook. The problem is FAR worse if I’m checking multiple accounts, but it’s really bad even with one, particularly when there are a lot of messages to download. I can’t for the life of me figure out why such a modern application can’t handle the rigors of checking mail, something that email clients have been doing forever.
Colour me frustrated.
Drop me a note if you also have trouble with Outlook slowness, and if you’ve had any success speeding it up I’m all ears!
Tags: Outlook, Microsoft Outlook, Outlook 2007, Outlook slowness, Outlook slow, MS Outlook, email
ClearContext 2.0 to be released tomorrow!
The next version of my favourite Outlook plug-in for helping to make a huge incoming stream of email manageable is being released tomorrow. The 2.0 version of ClearContext comes with a raft of new features, tons of fit and finish, and effectively turns Outlook into the email management solution it should already have been.
The new software is called ClearContext Information Management System Professional, or IMS Pro for short. (If ever there was a product Microsoft should purchase, it’s this one; both for the awesome functionality and also the Microsoft-inspired mouthful of a name… 
)
I’ve been a ClearContext user since the 1.0 days, and had the good fortune to act as a beta tester for IMS Pro for the past few months. It’s clear that ClearContext have noticed the popularity of David Allen’s Getting Things Done system, in particular amongst technical people, and much of the functionality in IMS Pro is in service of supporting a GTD system. In fact, I used to use the official Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In, and found that after using IMS Pro for a short while I was able to remove the GTD Outlook Add-In and retain all of the functionality I needed (and more).
I should also mention that the team at ClearContext is one of the most approachable and easy-to-communicate-with teams I’ve ever dealt with for a consumer software product. In fact, one of the new views in IMS Pro is the direct result of a question I sent to them when trying to build a view in Outlook that it simply can’t do natively. That view (it’s called “Threaded” if you’re curious) is now of vital importance to me in my work-flow, and I bet you’ll like it too.
Let me put it this way: if you find your email difficult to manage, and don’t feel that Outlook does enough to help you, give ClearContext a try. There is a short adaptation period, but because it’s very cleverly designed to work within Outlook’s framework, you are free to use as many or as few of the new features and work-flows that ClearContext adds. Of course, I suspect you’ll find you like almost all of them.
IMS Pro will retail for $69.95 USD. Luckily, ClearContext will also soon be releasing a free offering based on the same technology: ClearContext Inbox Manager 2.0 Personal Edition (yet another mouthful). The free version doesn’t have the GTD work-flow functionality, but will still go a long way towards helping you get a handle on your inbox.
Heh - I just re-read this post, and I sound like a commercial. But I don’t mind; I really love this software and if you’re an Outlook user I think you should try it.
email, Outlook, ClearContext, ClearContext 2.0
Tags: email, Outlook, ClearContext, ClearContext 2.0
Outlook Performance Issues
As I’ve documented previously, I’ve been struggling with performance issues in Outlook for a long time. Well, a friend gave me a suggestion a few days ago that I finally got around to trying today. That suggestion had been made to me in the past, but I wasn’t ready to believe it was the reason for my performance problems. Now I’m a believer.
What was the solution? Simply to remove the Getting Things Done Outlook Add-In. Well, not so simply, it turns out. NetCentrics, the developers of this plug-in, somehow don’t deem it necessary to provide a complete uninstaller for the plug-in. So, even if you uninstall it, the GTD Outlook Add-In leaves a bunch of cruft in your installation of Outlook. Luckily, a user on the David Allen forums posted a complete guide to actually removing the plug-in.
Note that once removed, my friend suggested that I run SCANPST (a utility that is installed with Microsoft Office, but not found on any menu - you have to search for it on your file system to find it), which repaired at least 11 corruptions within my PST file.
The end result is a far snappier installation of Outlook - so much so that I’m actually amazed. This is the performance I’ve been looking for.
So, do I still subscribe to the tenets of David Allen’s Getting Things Done workflow? Yep. But now I’m using version Clear Context 2.0’s Information Management System, which includes some very GTD-friendly functions like turning emails into tasks, and grouping information like emails, tasks and appointments by projects. Very cool. Note that Clear Context 2.0 is beta, but it’s good. Very good. Get it good.
And my Outlook is fast, finally!
(Chris, I’m sorry I didn’t follow your advice on this months ago!)
Tags: Outlook, Outlook performance, Outlook speed issues, Outlook 2003, pst file, Clear Context, ClearContext
