Why do PowerPoint templates take long to appear?

[MidiMagic]

When I start PowerPoint at work, all of the premade slide templates are there when I start working.

When I start PowerPoint at home, the image of each template takes about 15 second to appear in the task pane, so it is several minutes before they are all visible.

Why does this happen? I don't see either any long disk activity or any long internet activity while I am waiting for them to appear. I see a blip of disk activity just before each one appears, but nothing else.

If I close the task pane and work on something else, they are all there when I return after several minutes.

[jbennet]

maybe its related to the picture manager bug:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555592

or the bug this guy is having:

http://www.technologyquestions.com/microsoft-office/196992-office-very-slow-opening-docs-word-excel-powerpoint.html

[W.Peterson]

Maybe you meant the loading of all slide thumbnails in left pane of PowerPoint is too slow. If so, I just suggest that you can close the left pane and save the presentation again. The next time you open it, the pane will not display in PowerPoint.

;)

William Peterson

[MidiMagic]

I mean the Slide Design thumbnails in the Task Pane on the right. Use Format/Slide Design to open them.

More information:

- I tried the Picture Manager bug. There were no deleted paths.

- I have not upgraded to Office 2007.

- Each thumbnail takes 15-20 seconds to load.

- If I click on the empty thumbnail frame, the full sized image loads in the slide immediately.

- The thumbnails load one at a time, in the order they appear in, (left to right, and down to the next row after each row fills). Each take 15 to 20 seconds to load.

- If I click on the next unloaded thumbnail, it loads immediately in both the slide and the thumbnail.

- If I click on a lower thumbnail, the image loads in the slide immediately, but the thumbnail stays empty. When the thumbnail just before the one i clicked loads, the one I clocked also loads without the delay.

- If I click on several consecutive thumbnails, one at a time, they all load at once when the previous thumbnail finishes loading.

[MidiMagic]

More info.

Once it loads the thumbnails, it works correctly if I use PowerPoint again in the same work session. The thumbnails take a long time to load only when it is the first time I use PowerPoint after a boot.

[A_member]

I think its just something to do with your PC configuration, your office pc probably have higher specs typically ram and vga and maybe your pc has spyware and other factors that cuase your pc to slow down...

[jbennet]

I think its just something to do with your PC configuration, your office pc probably have higher specs typically ram and vga and maybe your pc has spyware and other factors that cuase your pc to slow down...

i think office 07 is just a POS

[MidiMagic]

I have checked for malware. None is apparent.

I would think that, if my home PC was too slow, the disk drive would be continuously being accessed. But instead, the drive light is off during those delays, until half a second before the next thumbnail loads.

And, as I said earlier, I can speed up the loads by clicking on each empty thumbnail space in order, causing the full screen versions to appear on the slide in quick succession (and the thumbnails to appear with their full screen version). This is definitely not a slow computer problem.

It's almost like there is a deliberate delay between loads.

I do not see any other symptoms of an overloaded computer. I have plenty of hard disk space, and nothing else shows any delays.

Other than this, DaniWeb is the slowest thing I encounter, due to the ads.

[hughv]

PC specs are the likely problem. Tell us RAM, CPU, etc.
Chkdsk and defrag are good tools also.
Any chance your HD is approaching capacity?

[A_member]

i think office 07 is just a POS

wasnt talking about ms office :), was talkin about his workplace...anyway i dont like office 07 too..so u could say that, i use '03

[jbennet]

yeah i hate it, i use 03 too but i have to use 07 at college and out machines have 512 of ram SLOOOOOW

[Softix]

What version of Powerpoint do you have in home and in work?. I am using powerpoint 2000 and its working ok but not faster when your using newer version.

[MidiMagic]

Both work and home came with Office 2003.

CPU Intel Pentium IV 1.79 GHz
RAM 384 MB
HD 40 GB, 30GB used

Like I said, I don't think this is a system capability problem, because I can speed it up by clicking on the the unfilled thumbnail boxes.

[Tech1Trainer]

I just read all of these threads relating to the problem of why PowerPoint Design Templates load so slowly. Has anyone actually figured out why this is, or is everyone still guessing? I really could use some help with this problem. Thanks!

[twisterchaser]

I also have Office 2003 and am experiencing the same problem. I would appreciate it if someone has a workable solution other than the typical SPYWARE/MALWARE/MEMORY excuses.

I'm working on an IBM T43 with 1Gb RAM and over 10Gb of space on my hardrive (with no viruses or malware of any kind) on a corporate network. This is an obvious problem with the program itself and not a hardware issue.

I too can click on the thumbnail and have it load immediately but left alone the program takes up to 5 minutes to load all the previews. Are these being loaded from the web? Aren't they stored on the resident harddrive?

It's nice to know I'm not the only one experiencing the frustration but it sounds like this is a very rare problem- any ideas would be appreciated by us.

[Tech1Trainer]

TwisterChaser,

Thanks for joining my search for a solution to this PowerPoint problem. Since my posting, no one has responded with a fix. This seems to be a difficult problem to solve. I think my frustration with it came through in my request for assistance. I apologoze for that. You seem to have articulated the problem far more reasonably than I did. Let's hope someone answers with a solution. Good luck.

Tech1Trainer

[bobbyraw]

here is a work around defrag the HDD. and this is due to the compression thats on the .WMF files and your catalog file might be damaged. try reinstalling office and set everything to run from your hard drive.when you are done open power pint and run the clip organizer and compact each category.

[hughv]

Both work and home came with Office 2003.

CPU Intel Pentium IV 1.79 GHz
RAM 384 MB
HD 40 GB, 30GB used

Like I said, I don't think this is a system capability problem, because I can speed it up by clicking on the the unfilled thumbnail boxes.

You have a minimal amount of RAM, a slow (ish) CPU and your HD is getting full.
I didn't hear a reply to my suggestion about chkldsk and defrag, so I sort of lost interest.
Is your copy of PP up to date?

[jbennet]

SP3 is most recent for 2003

[MidiMagic]

I have installed all of the upgrades.

I have checked to see if it is some kind of computer overload, and it is not. CPU usage is minimal, the hard drive light flashes just before each thumbnail loads, and there is no internet traffic. It's almost as though someone put a timer in there to slow this down.

Defraging the disk is just a guess. I defragged it a few months ago. But if the disk were fragmented, the disk access light would be on all the time. It is not.

[hughv]

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.

[MidiMagic]

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.

[hughv]

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.

[MidiMagic]

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?

[hughv]

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).

[Tech1Trainer]

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

[hughv]

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.

[Tech1Trainer]

hughv,

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

Tech1Trainer

[Tech1Trainer]

Solved, thanks to hughv!

Tech1trainer

[MidiMagic]

I will give that a try.