I hate Microsoft Outlook. Back in the day, when I was teaching people how to use it (Office 95 and then Office 97), it was a wonderful thing. Sharing calendars, preview views, lots of different configurations that could accommodate anyone’s needs. Before that there had only been Lotus Notes, and while it was good, it didn’t lend itself to all of the iterations that MS Office did. But then there were holes, and I could no longer use some of my most-used functions, like the preview pane, and linking out from emails, because of the holes in both Outlook and Internet Explorer.
Then Office 2007 came out. It was supposed to be bigger and badder and better. But I hated Outlook 2007 from the very first moment I used it. At least it didn’t insult me with the whole “ribbon” thing as in the other Office programs, but it has turned into an amazingly slow, earth-pounding, gigantic dinosaur. We are required to use it at work. When I log in in the morning, I’ve learned to just go get a cup of coffee and come back, and by then maybe it will have loaded and be ready to go.
I timed it one day. It took 7 minutes from the time I started it until it was ready for me to read and answer mail. Worse, while it is loading and doing whatever it is doing, I cannot do anything else on the computer. I can’t open any other program, get logged into our ticket server, nothing. I sit and wait for Outlook to get itself pulled together to run so that I can start doing my job.
It’s ridiculous. I’m running a fast machine, with minimal start-up programs, and there’s no reason for this program to run like this. I can’t imagine what it is doing to tie up all of my system resources, but it’s starting to get in the way of me doing my job. Some of our tech staff have resorted to leaving their machines running overnight, with Outlook already loaded up, so they don’t have a delay in the morning getting to the ticket system or to other things they need to get to.
I never have this trouble with Thunderbird. I can open it, let it do its thing, and go on to other things I need to do. I thought MS Office was supposed to enhance our productivity. Not so much, as I see it.
We have had this type of problem as well. It turns out that there are a few things you can do. If your exchange server is authenticating with NTLM and the settings in Outlook are set to “basic” then Outlook will fail at authenticating every time you start the program. Then, after a long delay, Outlook tries another form of authentication, until finally it gets it right. Try changing the type of authentication in the account settings; that has changed a 7 minute start up to under a minute.
7 minutes and you can’t do anything else? What exactly is your definition of a fast machine?
My notebook is only running a 2.2 core 2 and I have quite a few other things running when I fire up outlook and don’t have this issue.
As far as productivity is concerned is there any other single application you can be logged into that handles multiple e-mail accounts, calendar, notes, tasks, contacts and rss feed? And, be able to syc all of these to your WinMo smartphone too?
I use all of these both for work and personal life. I’d be open to an alternative if there was one but as of yet have not found it.