Outlook attachment slowdown fix

I've been wrestling with some bad behavior in Outlook related to my inbox. If I selected an e-mail that had an attachment, Outlook would basically freeze for 30-seconds or so, before displaying the message. After searching everywhere I could think of on the Internet, I had found two suggestions:

1. Disable the link to Instant Messenger
2. Uncheck the box for the dialog to always ask whether to open/save the attachments

Neither of these solutions did anything for me. I searched on Microsoft's Web site and saw a knowledgebase article about Alternative Input, and how an update was supposed to improve the processing of e-mails with attachments. Unfortunately, a scan of my Office installation said that no updates were needed.

Finally, I found a knowledgebase article explaining that Office installs Speed and Handwriting Recognition by default. The following knowledgebase article explains how to turn these off, and solved my problem. E-mails with attachments are now just as zippy as other e-mails. Here's a link to the article that helped me. Please help spread the word!

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