Why does Exchange take so damn long to load?
Because it’s a large and complicated program. (I know, so what else is new?) Furthermore, many users make it even more complicated than it is already by loading profiles that contain FAX, CompuServe, MSN, and even multiple flavors of Internet Mail providers all at once. Exchange has to load and set up each of these components before it presents itself to you. Instead of launching a mail program, you’re launching four mail programs and a FAX program, all at once. You can greatly improve the load time of Exchange by using a pared-down profile that contains only the services that you use. FAX and MSN are the worst performance offenders, but anything that you don’t use you should move into another profile. I habitually run with a profile that contains only Personal Folders, Personal Address Book, and Internet Mail. I also don’t use Microsoft Word as my email editor. If you have 8 Megabytes or less of RAM, Exchange will thrash painfully as it squeezes its vast bulk into memory. For best per
