Recently, a few new machines have been hanging when the Office File Optimizer runs at start up. It has been our policy to stop it from running future checks and only to allow it to run the first time (as it will try again if you cancel the program). Now that it hangs systems, we may want to try another approach. The following article explains what the Optimizer does and where it is located. In cases where the system hangs on startup due to the Optimizer running, we should reboot until it starts without the Optimizer then, having shut down all the TSRs, run the Optimizer and change the option to run future checks.

The Office File Optimizer is a utility that optimizes startup times in your Office programs. The Office File Optimizer does not operate like the utilities Winalign and Disk Defragmenter, included with Microsoft Windows. Winalign rewrites files and creates new 4 KB sections for these files on your hard disk. Disk Defragmenter physically rearranges all of the files and unused space on your hard disk so that programs run faster. The Office File Optimizer arranges the physical location of the Office program files on your hard disk so they can be read much more quickly. The Office File Optimizer arranges the files so that the loading time of the Office programs is reduced, allowing for an increase in speed. Because these utilities all operate differently, even if you run the Disk Defragmenter program the Office File Optimizer may still automatically run and reorder the location of your Office files for greater optimization. Likewise, if you add or remove files using Office Setup, the Office File Optimizer may run when you restart Windows. The Office File Optimizer operates on Windows 95 and 98. The wizard is not designed to run on Windows NT. The utility runs the first time Windows is started after you install Office 2000 and then runs automatically as needed. When Windows starts it compares the order of the optimized file list stored in the Windows registry, to the physical location of Office files on your hard disk. If the location of the files has changed, the Office File Optimizer is started. You can run the Office File Optimizer manually by running Otuneup.exe located in the folder in which you installed Office. By default this folder is C:\Program files\Microsoft Office\Office. You can prevent the utility from running by clicking to clear the Run checks in the future check box in the Microsoft Office 2000 File Optimizer dialog box.