[RichD]

Hardwa New mid-level Vector GX computer with two GB RAM and newly released
high-end video card (nVidia 8600 GT). 2.13 Core 2 Due processor.

OS: Vista

MS Office softwa Office 2007 (an upgrade from Office XP)

Problem 1

Assume I have a couple of open programs (say Firefox and Thunderbird. When I
switch among them there is no delay. The 2 GB of RAM takes care of
everything. Exception: When Word is included among the open programs, when I
switch from any of them to Word (whether Word XP before I installed Word
2007, or Word 2007) there is a four-second delay during which time I cannot
use Word in any way or fashion. From past experience with an old computer
that lacked sufficient RAM, I can tell the switch to Word is utilizing the
hard drive and not RAM.

Problem 2

I have an external USB hard drive. I also have 662 MB (size on disk) of Word
files in 97-2003 file format (.doc). For reasons I will explain in problem 3,
I have divided that 662 MB into two roughly equal main folders.

Using Windows Explorer and the Windows Copy/Paste commands, when I try to
copy one of those Word folders to the external USB hard drive, I usually get
a transfer rate of about 40 KB (not MB) per second. At that rate it can take
ten to 20 hours for the backup.

Contrast that (and this is important) with my ability to transfer my
Pictures folder (3.2 GB) at about 19 MB (not KB) per second, and my Music
folder (909 MB) at about the same 19 MB per second.

Due to the slowness of the Word transfer I must reboot and then try the
transfer again. At that time, and due to the clearing of the RAM, I usually
get about 1/4th of one MB per second (about 225 KB per second) if I am lucky;
most often it drops down to about 165 KB per second. Its still a very slow
backup, but at least I can do it.

Problem 3

I can transfer one of those Word folders (about ½ of 662 MB) to the external
HD, but in order to transfer the other one (about ½ of 662 MB) I must again
reboot. If I try to do that second transfer without rebooting, the copying
process starts and then stops part way through and I get an €œinsufficient
memory€� notice.

All in all, it takes two reboots to transfer 662 MB to the external hard
drive, and the copy process is slow, slow, slow.

I purchased Office 2007 in the belief Vista had somehow crippled Word XP (I
had no problem whatsoever with my Word XP backups when I used the XP OS in my
prior computer with just one MB). But nothing changed when I installed Office
2007. I dont feel too good about that.

My questions a
1. Why is Word eating up my RAM?
2. How can that be remedied?
3. Will SP-1 fix it if there is no current fix?