Are you using Cached Exchange Mode? If not, you should be. Otherwise, Outlook has to download each message every time you view it, rather than saving them on the local drive!

If the Exchange server isn't directly on your local network, you'd better connect to it via HTTP or HTTPS, otherwise connectivity will be slow if it works at all.

Yeah, it's possible to remove Office completely.

Remove 2007 and try a trial of Office 2010 (and OH G-D not the click-to-run crap install) and see if Outlook works there. From my experience, 2010 has been an actual improvment on previous versions.

As far as converting .pst files to Thunderbird, it's possible. Either upload the messages to an IMAP server, then pull them off via Thunderbird, or there are products out there that allow for a direct conversion.

Lastly, are your I.T. folk complete idiots?

Tried both ways, no difference. I can't qualify the issue as lack of performance. It works nicely when it does. The rest of the time I click save draft or send or drag a message to the calendar icon and Outlook hangs. It's hanging more frequently now but when it works it works well.

Tried both ways, no difference.

I assume Outlook 2010 works with older versions of Exchange. Is it a hassle to revert to 2007 when the 60 day trial period expires or if I decide it's not an improvement?

That sounds like more work than it's worth, and could kill trying another client.

Umm... most of that function is is performed by yours truly. The folks who manage the exchange server can't figure out what's going with the PC in question. A possible hint is that when we redid the exchange settings, it wouldn't save the account parameters because "Outlook was still in use" even though we stopped the OUTLOOK.EXE process in Task Manager. We were able to reset the account after rebooting.

Sixto
87 300D^2

Outlook 2010 works with Exchange 2003, not sure about older versions than that. It's possible to revert, no huge hassle -- if you're really worried, set a system restore point before installing 2010.

Lastly, did you try creating another user profile and running Outlook with that, pulling data into a fresh .pst file (cached/HTTP mode, naturally)? Also removing any add-ins that may be running.

You don't have to go through IMAP to convert PST to Thunderbird, just copy the messages back to the Exchange server, then download with Thunderbird - same as all messages.

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