There is nothing to "guess" at about defrag.
Run the "analyze" routine and you will know for certain.
Likewise with chkdsk. These are routine checks that have to be made before moving on to other possibilities.
Have you tried PP in Safe mode?
Look in Event viewer as well, to see if any App or System errors occur with the disk or with PP.

I meant it was a guess on your part.

I checked the format and defragged the drive. No change in the behavior of PowerPoint.

Like I said, the computer isn't showing that it is doing anything between the times the thumbnails appear. If it had been a fragmented disk or an overloaded CPU, it would be showing a lot of activity. It is not.

It's almost like someone put a setInterval in to start the next thumbnail load after a delay.

Wikipedia on Defrag:
"Sequential reading and writing data on a heavily fragmented file system is slowed down as the time needed for the disk heads to move between fragments"
Let me translate-Defragging can speed up disk access.
Not a guess, a routine part of troubleshooting problems like this. If you want help, it's best not to insult the helper.

I think I now know what is going on.

- There is very little disk drive usage during the delays.

- PP is using 98% CPU during the delays. But PP does not show such a CPU usage at any other time.

- There is no internet activity during this delay.

- It speeds things up to click on the templates that do not yet display.

I believe PP is converting the images in the .pot files to the screen resolution I am using (1152 X 864).

Is there any way to make it save the images, rather than convert them each time?

I don't get this delay, and I'm using 1680 X 1050.
I have 2GB RAM and a 512 MB video card.
Compare the specs on this machine to your machine at work. RAM is cheap. Try adding some and see if it helps.
It couldn't hurt to try the Office Repair procedure (That's a guess).

I believe that I have found the solution to this problem. I just did it on my PC and it finally fixed the problem. Try this:

Open MS PowerPoint
Click on the "Help" menu
Click on "Detect & Repair"
In the "Detect & Repair" pop-up box, leave "Restore my shortcuts while repairing" checked and also check the box "Discard my customized settings and restore default settings"
Click "Start" at the bottom of the pop-up box. The process wil take about 4-5 minutes to complete.
Once completed, restart your computer, open MS PowerPoint, and click on the "Design" icon on the formatting toolbar up top and your design templates should appear instantly!

It worked for me this morning. I hope it works for all of you who have struggled with this problem.

Tech1Trainer

Some times those old guesses come in handy!
Well done.
Be sure to mark the thread "solved", so others will be able to find it.

hughv,

It was your tip about the repair procedure that got me there. Thanks buddy!

Tech1Trainer

Solved, thanks to hughv!

Tech1trainer

I will give that a try.