[R] Slow response from Windows Rgui - caused by Word?

[Jon Olav Skoien]

Dear list,

I quite often experience a delayed response when I type in the console 
of the RGui of my computer. When typing a command, the text only appears 
letter-by-letter on the console if I type rather slow (maximum 1-2 
letters per second), otherwise it appears some time after I finished 
writing the complete command. Moving back and forth in a command with 
arrows keys are similarly slow if I need to correct something (which I 
often have to do, given that I cannot read while writing).

Although this might sound like a minor problem (thinking takes more time 
than writing when programming, and writing should anyway take place in a 
proper text editor), it is quite annoying, especially when I just want 
to rerun a long command after changing something at the start of the line.

Strangely, it seems that this problem starts when I open a 
Word-document, and it stops when I close all open Word-documents. I do 
not have any problems with other programs (including other programs from 
the office package), and computation seems to run as quick as normal.

Some info about my system:

 > sessionInfo()
R version 2.11.1 (2010-05-31)
x86_64-pc-mingw32

locale:
[1] LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252
[2] LC_CTYPE=English_United States.1252  
[3] LC_MONETARY=English_United States.1252
[4] LC_NUMERIC=C                         
[5] LC_TIME=English_United States.1252   

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base    
 > objects()
character(0)

And as Word seems to be connected to the problem - I am running Windows 
7 Pro with Office 2007, the only Add-In to Word is Endnote (version 9). 
I have turned off the instant formatting option, as it also caused some 
other problems.

Does anyone have a clue how I can have a Word document open and at the 
same time work with R without having this delayed response?

Best wishes,
Jon