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Question

Microsoft Office - Problems Launching?

Oct 20, 2011 1:25AM PDT

I'm running 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) with 2.4 GHz Intel and 4GB of ram.

Anytime I try to launch an Office program (Word, Excel or Powerpoint) it loads amazingly slowly and slows down my entire computer so that I can't do anything else.

The last time I tried to open Word, I opened Activity Monitor first so I could see what's going on. Usually my % usages for the CPU are under 10%, but when I tried to open word it jumped up to over 40% for most of the time, and peaked at about 70%. That can't be normal.

It usually takes 5-10 mins to load completely, although it usually opens within a minute and then gives me the beachball for the rest of that time. Once it does get loaded, it works fine as long as I don't Quit (then it takes just as long to load). Restarting the mac doesn't help, either.

I think I'll probably have to reinstall Office, but I was hoping someone might have an easier solution?

Discussion is locked

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Clarification Request
Does any other program behave like this?
Oct 20, 2011 7:08AM PDT

If yes, it may be something else. Tu rule out a direct Office impact, make a test administrative account (hope you know how to make it), log into it and see if it helps. If not, reinstalling office may be needed. But if yes, the problem may be on your main account calling for maintenance, like repairing permissions with Disk utility, deep cleaning of various cafes with Onyx, etc. Will take 5 minutes to make the account and test.

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It's only Office.
Oct 20, 2011 8:05AM PDT

No, only office programs are behaving this way. All my adobe programs run without a hitch and the standard Mac software is fine too.

I don't know how to make an administrative account. I'm not sure if I'd even be able to, as this is my work computer on a network.

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check your system preferences>users and groups
Oct 20, 2011 8:35AM PDT

In order to install any new software including Office 2011, you need an administrator password (this is what you use to login to the computer). Hope you have one, if not, your IT person has one. Once you know you have it, open system preferences>users and groups (could also be accounts), click on the padlock and type your admin password. The padlock opens. Click on the plus sign (bottom left). In the window, choose under New account "administrator" (on older OS it may be just account and you need to click on "allow this account to administer the computer). Name it as you wish, choose an easy password, input everything and click on "create" (or create user). Log out of the computer and log in again into the new account that will be displayed. Once there, launch any Office app (from the Applications folder) and see how it behaves. If normal, your computer is up for maintenance. If again it goes as before, uninstall Office and reinstall. After uninstall I would restart and after reinstall as well.

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Answer
I would uninstall that version of Office
Oct 20, 2011 5:59AM PDT

and reinstall it.

It should not take that long to load.

What version of Office for Mac is it?

P

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I knew I forgot something!
Oct 20, 2011 8:07AM PDT

It's Office 2011, and it was a fresh install about 2 weeks ago. I knew I forgot to say something the that original post.