Since I don't know the source of this problem, I'll start here. When a user
receives an email in Outlook Express with a Word or Excel 2003 attachment, it
takes a minute or more to open the attachment even if Word or Excel is already
open. A PDF attachment opens normally.

She already did a Detect and Repair in Word, and it did not make any difference.
Since the PDF attachment opens normally, it seems that OE is not at fault. Maybe
some other OE user has solved this problem.

The computer is XP SP3 fully updated. There are no viruses or malware. The
machine is perfectly clear.