Hi all any idea why my microsoft word programme on windows xp seems so slow to open and close documents sometimes it can take as long as 30 to 40 seconds to open or close a document anything i can do to speed it up or ani ideas why it could be doing it? thanks

a very simple thing to do would be to CTL,ALT,DEL > Task Manager > Processes and then arrange in order of CPU or Mem Usage.

this will list what the machine is doint at that time - usual System Idle Process should be above 90%... then try opening word again and see what happens.

its most likely running another process (sinister or otherwise) in the background that is sucking up your memory/cpu etc.

let me know how

Thanks for your advice tried that it seems to keep flicking from 2% to 27% back and forth every second or so cant seem to work out which programme is using the 27%. Any ideas im a bit thick when it comes to pc's!

Once you've opened up the Windows Task Manager, select the Processes Tab.

Sort the list on either CPU or Mem Usage, from what you've said I would say its a Memory thing.

Clicking the Mem Usage will sort into ascending or descending - to make it easier sort into a descending list (biggest number top i think), highlight the process to see if it is the same process that is constantly jumping up and down the list.

Note: If you dont recognise the process and are worried about killing something that you think should be running by the system - type the process name into google to get some idea what its related to.

With the process highlighted click the End Process Button (bottom right).

This could be a simple case of needing a RAM upgrade - but if its just started happening recently its more likely to be something malicious. Do you run anti-virus, anti-spyware, do you have an "always on" connection and if so are you behind a firewall?

If you go to the top of the Computers and Internet Forum - youll find allsorts of freeware programs to download... if you dont already have it - zonealarm, spybot and ad-aware

i do have spyware and anti virus software but will try wehat you have suggested

many thanks for your advice

OK if still no good - feel free to PM me and ill try to advise you further.

Cheers