We have several systems running Windows XP Pro SP3 and Office Basic 2007.
When trying to start Excel or Word for the first time after booting or a
reboot, either program will take anywhere from 2 to 20 minutes to start up.
The main Excel or Word screen will appear with the ribbons at the top and the
cursor will change to a large fat plus sign. At this point the program has
frozen or gone into some kind of loop. We cannot access the round start
button or do anything else in either Excel or Word, nor can we exit out of
the program without great difficulty (including thru the task manager).
After the first time either program is started (and left to finish opening),
both programs will work completely normally for the rest of the day, taking
only 4-5 seconds to start up and be running. The only significant change to
the systems prior to the start of the problems was the installation of
Windows XP SP3.