Office Applications slow to open from Windows Explorer

All,

I've been observing an intermittent problem with Mostly Word - but also
Excel. I've seen this both in the 2002 and 2003 versions of the programs.

The problem is that sometimes when trying to open a .DOC file from the file
explorer (Windows XP Pro) it takes 5 to 10 seconds before the Word splash
screen appears and the file loads. I have observed this on a couple of
different machines. Sometimes it seemed to happen immediately after machine
start-up, sometimes it didn't happen until after the machine was up for
awhile.

I read a lot of messages on this and other forums all offering basically the
same advice, none of which seemed to work. I tinkered with the file
association and noticed that Word seems to require a DDE conversation in
order to pass the specified filename to the program. I tried removing the
DDE conversation which caused Word to start instantly - unfortunately it
couldn't find the file. Starting Word from a shortcut pointed directly at a
file was much faster, though and starting Word directly is instantaneous
always. What the heck is going on?

Then this morning I got up to do something on my computer and discovered
that Word was opening files instantaneously in explorer. It finally occurred
to me that I had not yet turned on my printer. Once I turned it on, the
delay came back. It is now obvious to me that Word (and the other office
programs) are in some way interrogating the printer driver and waiting on
some feedback from it before continuing to load. Turning the printer off
doesn't help as the driver is then loaded.

And yes ... I have reloaded new printer drivers and have seen this on
multiple types of printers.

What I would like to know from the Microsoft guys is this: Is there some
way (through a command-line switch or other configuration option) that I can
tell Word not to make this call to the printer driver? Can this call be made
at the point when you're trying to print something as opposed to program
start-up? Does setting your "default printer" to something other than the
one connected to your machine have an effect on this? (I hope not ... seems
silly to disable the 'default' printer).

This problem does not exist in any of the other applications on my system
(Microsoft or otherwise). Can we please have a patch of some kind or info
about how to correct this? It's not a "biggie" in my case - I can wait the 5
seconds or so - but it's distracting. You don't even get a busy caret
(hourglass) when this happens - the double-click event simply gets ingested
and you don't know for sure if you've actually fired off Word or not. It's
just dirty.

Thanks in advance.

-CB

--
A landing is a controlled midair collision between an aircraft and a
celestial body - Airp Airp.