Word 2003 slowly launches

I had experienced problems with Word 2003 taking a long time to launch. I'm not sure when it occurred, though I suspect it was when I tested it as the email editing client for Outlook. Even though I disabled Outlook from using Word 2003, Word continued to launch slowly.

I searched Google, but couldn't find much that would help. I resorted to using the Detect and Repair feature contained in the Help menu. After some processing, the Detect and Repair process asked me for my install disk. Since this is a company computer, Office was installed from a shared drive that I don't have access to, so I canceled the process.

When I returned to Word, it acted as though it was the first time launching, and it now seems to open faster. Unfortunately, when I opened Outlook, it also acted like it was the first time launching. My profile was gone with my settings to access my email and the pointer to my email archives. Fortunately I keep all most of my email on the server, so I can access it through my iPhone and through webmail.

To get my archive back, the following steps were required (note that I am using Outlook 2003):

1. Reconfigure Outlook, so it will open
2. Go to File >> Data File Management...
3. Click Add...
4. Select Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst)
5. Select my archive file (archive.pst) -- I found it in C:\Documents and Settings\[my username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook
6. Click OK and then Close
7. Scroll down below your mailbox and its folders and I found the archive folder I just added

I think I can take away a couple lessons from this:

1. Don't trust intertwined apps, such as Office from Microsoft to just be self-contained within itself
2. Don't use Word as your email editor client
3. Have regular backups of your data, including email, just in case -- I didn't need it this time, but you never know.

Finally let me add that if you're interested in other Word related articles on my blog, select the Word label from the right-nav or just click this link.