Comments on: Fix Outlook 2007 slow performance issues

By: Nate

Nate — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:26:40 +0000

Wow. So many people with the same group of problems.
If some of you don’t have multiple large email accounts being handled by outlook then I don’t know why your system is running so sluggish. You may need to look into the system you’re using. Using newer programs means more resources needed to perform the same functions so you may need more RAM or a better processor.

My Outlook only has problems when initially running after a few hours of being off. I think this person is right about the large .pst files. One of my folders has over 48,000 emails while the others have less than 3,000. The system doesn’t immediately get sluggish, however. It only slows down when it accesses my largest email account.

I hope this helps. I guess I have to delete a few thousand emails, or is there another fix?

By: Darren

Darren — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:57:22 +0000

Just to add - the tweaks I have found are: Disable the add-ins in the trust center; turn off all the RSS feeds; minimize the number of data files outlook is using (again in the trust center) - if you have only one mail account and upgraded outlook, double check cos it may be using two, when you only need one….if you need more than one mail account, you need one data file for each - delete or archive any surplus ones. You can also try using POP3 instead of IMAP. IMAP is superior, but this is where the politics come in - apparently POP3 should work fine, since its for ‘joe schmo’, but since businesses seem to prefer IMAP, thats where some ‘inhibitions’ were placed to drive business towards IIS/Exchange server….for all of us non-business-heads who want the use of IMAP…I think that answer might be ‘tough luck’ put up with the slowness…

I am repeatedly and continually shaking my head in disbelief at how Outlook 2007 can be so disastrous in performance with the number of crashes and freezes in ADDITION to slowness and poor IMAP management….

By: Darren

Darren — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 22:51:30 +0000

Well, if you ask me, Outlook 2007 is a disaster. Why should we all have to disable everything and tweak it to make an EMAIL application work???? Its hardly an SAP or Oracle ERP’s…Its email and contacts…it doesnt need to have so many issues when others manage to get it right…

Ive done EVERYTHING everyone on many sites have suggested to speed outlook up, and they all work a bit - all by switching functionality off. What I dont understand is HOW people who NEED that functionality get it to work at all!!!!

Im using outlook for contacts ONLY and its very quick - i tried to manage emails, but I have six accounts for different businesses and different functions and outlook simply could not handle it - crashing more often than not and barely getting through the initial send and receive.

What I REALLY dont understand is how Outlook 2003 could do it but 2007 cant. Though, i did find out that microsoft (allegedly) butchered the healthy IMAP functionality that 2003 had so it would only work so smoothly with IIS/Exchange to ‘encourage’ businesses to use it (but totally alienating Joe Public)…

No - if you have more than one email account to manage, forget outlook and look elsewhere. Thunderbird is lightning quick for email - even with six accounts being managed over IMAP…so how can one be lightning quick and the other fall over on its face??? there really is no comparison.

So, sadly, since Mozilla dont do contacts well at all, and Microsoft do it very well, im using both. Clumsy, but both do the job fast.

Im totally gutted and infuriated that Microsoft seem to have crippled their own solution for the sake of driving sales of other applications that most of us dont need.

Typical.

By: Robby Slaughter

Robby Slaughter — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 13:44:55 +0000

Here’s a workaround which is *amazingly* effective for me. When Outlook 2007 on Vista freezes up when trying to save a contact or an appointment or send an email, go to the icon in the bottom right corner of the taskbar and right click. Select “Cancel Server Request.” Works perfectly!

By: Montan

Montan — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 03:57:08 +0000

This is what worked for me. I have a roadrunner email account running on Outlook 2007. All of the sudden send and receive mail was slllooowww. I logged into my Roadrunner web-based email mail account and found over 100 junk mail messages that existed even though I had deleted them from Outlook. I deleted them on Roadrunner web email and my Outlook was magically fixed. Hooray!

By: tig

tig — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:18:56 +0000

rufo, I just applied the hotfix, and opening emails was a bit sluggish.
Checking the box to “Turn Off Attachment Preview” seems to speed things up …. thanks

By: MrGroove

MrGroove — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 16:47:06 +0000

@Rufo

Thanks for the additional Tip RuFo and WELCOME to the site!

By: RuFo

RuFo — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 09:24:40 +0000

Outlook 2007 was also extremely slow - moreso when opening an email. What worked for me was - Tools|Trust Centre|Attachment Handling - Check the box to “Turn Off Attachment Preview”. This sped up opening of emails.
I am however still having a slow response when opening an Office 2007 attachment. Troubleshooting that right now.

By: MrGroove

MrGroove — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:56:37 +0000

Hi David and Welcome to the site!

I had similar issues with McAfee as I stated here: http://www.groovypost.com/howto/microsoft/outlook/fix-slow-outlook-email-address-auto-complete/

How that was associated with the “Auto-Complete”. Not suprised that Symantec or even McAfee for that matter is causing Performance issues. I think were going to be seeing a lot of tuning from AV agents as they become familiar with Vista and Outlook / Office 2007.

Thanks for the contribution!

By: David

David — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:41:51 +0000

My issue with Outlook 2003 on vista was it would become unresponsive while navigating the e-mail structure. Task manager showed that Outlook was using very little resources (processing time). After reading other posts on the internet, I decided to disable my Symantec Antivirus Client from scanning e-mail, and Voilla! Outlook functions again. I’m not sure why this works, and I’m not happy that I must disable my e-mail scanning, so I cannot tell everyone to do so. However, I have contacted Symantec about this issue and hope they will work to resolve it.

Cheers. David