GRINDING (my XP system) and BUMPING (well, crashing anyway: Outlook
2000, release 9):
I think these may be related. My system has gotten very slow lately.
It's not a virus, I believe; I run Norton often and it checks my mail
too. I also run Norton disk doctor and Windoctor often. At the same
time, Outlook crashes all the time now--and most typically when I'm
inserting a reply to an e-mail, within a "rich text" area. (I'd turned
on "rich text" for my own system, and then turned it off...I forget
why.)
Are these related matters? I asked the Outlook "rich text" question &
haven't gotten any answers. Maybe they're related. And I realize there
could be thousands of explanations, including El Nino....And I can't
price this to cover all of computer knowledge....but here goes anyway.

When your system seems to be running slowly, use the Task Manager
applet (Ctrl-Alt-Del under WinXP) to see what processes are hogging
the CPU or disk.  I've seen Outlook straining to do "archiving" or
something similarly named, which can bring a system to its knees about
the way "Fast Find" used to do for an older generation.

best wishes, mathtalk-ga

unfortunately there is no one answer to problems like this. the
process of diagnosing and troubleshooting would take a few cycles of
back-and-forth testing.

the tried-and-true solutions that often work are
uninstalling/reinstalling, or using a disk-doctor type program to make
sure you dont have a filesystem problem.

but the actual cause of a problem like this could be so complex, and
there are so many different possible causes, that answer answer to
your question with that small problem description would have to be a
guess, at best. good luck. maybe try calling microsoft? or maybe there
are help forums for MS products (i haven't looked).

regards,
joe

To mathtalk-ga and j0e-ga: Thanks both, very much. I will watch the
Task Manager, and run Norton diskfix (or whatever it's called) a bit
more often, and I'm probably going to do a reinstall at least of
Outlook, since my Outlook version predates my XP system. And try a few
other things.

Yes, it's clear there are plenty of possible issues..but even having
that confirmed is helpful, in a way... (That may seem absurd, but
consider the converse: Sometimes you live with a problem because you
assume it's complex, then you find a simple fix, and you realize
you've put up with a lot of irritation and inconvenience for nothing.)

So the silver lining (sort of!) here is: I'm probably not missing any
simple fix...So I'm probably having a hassle for a REAL reason....
Anyway, I'll be trying installs, etc. Thanks to you both. again.