I have been using the '97 version of Microsoft Word for years, back from the time when it was running on my Win95-equipped 486. However, now that I am using a rather powerful (for my standards) machine with Windows XP, MS Word began behaving strangely to say the very least.
Almost every time when I load a larger document in it (100 + Kb of pure text DOC), the computer begins lagging and when I check the resource usage it shows that Word is using around 97% of the Cpu power. Now, considering that my CPU is 1,75 Ghz fast, this is a complete nonsense.
So far I managed to deduce that the most possible suspect is the automatic text correction feature. The problem is, disabling the damn thing did no difference at all.

What else can be the cause and how to get rid of it? (I mean the problem, not MS Word.)

Get your self open office at openoffice.org. LOL

Other then that, make sure your Word has SP2 (I believe that was latest one) installed, as that fixed some problems.

I had the same experience with XP + Office 97. I think MS would very much like you to buy Office XP although personally I didn't like it one bit compared to 97. I tried disabling most things too but it didn't make that much difference, the problem is XP not Office 97. The only thing I can suggest is exporting text from text files (.txt) rather than doc files (.doc) where you can, as it seems to read them without going crazy on the system resources. Hope that helps slightly. Needless to say a 'downgrade' to Windows 98 will solve your problem completely.

Also try disabling these options, as every time new text is imported it will run these: Check spelling as I type, always suggest corrections & check grammar as I type.

compatibility mode ?

Moved to the right part of the forum. This have absolutly nothing to do with troubleshooting.

You could pass to Word 2000, it works good on WinXp :tomato:

Problem is, I cannot legally use Word 2k. I have a license for Word 98, and thus far I had no need of newer versions.

Service Pack 2: Already installed.
Spelling/grammar checks: Already disabled.

I'm going to try Data's suggestion on Compatibility Mode, see if it will change anything.

Tried compatibility modes. Zero effect.

Then if you care that much about licenses, use openoffice.org. ;)

Guess that's the only option left.