If you are running Outlook 2007 and find that it is painfully slow, even to the point of effecting productivity then the fix may be more simple then you think. For a number of months now I have been fighting with Outlook 2007 ever since installing it over a year ago and for the last few months have even ended up using webmail for my Exchange server only syncing emails once a day in Outlook. A while back we mentioned how to fix the Outlook 2007 slow problem and while it worked in the short term it still occasionally has a slight blip and I still ended up using webmail for emails. So what’s the new fix? SP2 for Office. Lets take a look at what Microsoft have done to restore my confidence in Outlook 2007.
Recently I performed a Windows Update manually as occasionally the automatic updates don’t pick up everything you need especially when a new genuine advantage tool needs to be downloaded. I found that 1 update available was called “The 2007 Microsoft® Office Suite Service Pack 2 (SP2)” and so I went ahead and told it to download. The download is over 200MB in size so I left it running for 30 minutes or so. After being required to reboot I loaded up Outlook and it started working on the folders for about 10 minutes (this is just the 1st time preparation after the update) and once loaded everything immediately felt more responsive then ever before. I closed out the app (once again, quicker then before) and re opened at which point it was also very quick. Since then my laptop has not hung once with outlook. Yes, it might go all bad in another weeks time but this service pack 2 for Outlook/Office gives me a little bit more confidence.
If you Outlook 2007 is slow for you then I’d highly recommend allowing the 200Meg+ download to update your Office 2007 install as it should finally sort out any issues and productivity problems you faced before.
Office 2007 SP2 Outlook Features
As well as updating Outlook the service pack 2 updates the other Office 2007 suite of programs. As this article is focussed more on Outlook we will just provide the feature list of the Outlook portion of the updates. For a full list of other apps check out the official MS page about the update found here.
Performance and responsiveness are key concerns for all our customers. That is why Microsoft made many performance tuning and optimization changes that are included in the 2007 Office suite Service Pack 2 (SP2).
Outlook 2007 SP2 delivers performance improvements in four major areas:
General Responsiveness
SP2 reduces I/O disk usage and UI response time.
Startup
SP2 removes long operations from initial startup.
Shutdown
SP2 makes Outlook exit predictably despite pending activities.
Folder/View Switch
SP2 improves view rendering and folder switching.
If you have any comments or questions on the SP2 update or run in to any problems, please comment below.
