Edit.

I shall moderate  my rant. The problem seems to be if you have an Exchange mailbox but are not connected to the network. I just tried it with a VPN connection and it  flew. Take away the VPN connection and its back to the 2 Min + load times. Still not right but not quite as bad.

Ok I have downloaded the Beta 2 refresh and it has made some small UI changes and I am sure there is lots under the hood BUT Outlook is truly painful! Words fail me to describe how bade the user experiance starting this app are!

I have found the Beta 2 version to be a bit slow and tended to just not start and I was praying that this had been fixed but no!

To launch Outlook takes 2 Min 7 Seconds to 2 Mins 30 Secs! Over 2 mins from clicking the icon to getting a view of my inbox. No way can this be acceptable. Whatever the Office team do between now and RTM they need to lock the Outlook team in an office and thwor away the key till they get it right. This is the flagship application for Office and waiting 2 mins for it to launch is not acceptable.

For reference I am running a Dell Latitude D620 with dual processor & 2Gb Ram.

I am running XP Pro, Windows desktop Search (Latest Beta). When I am in the office or on VPN I connect to Exchange.

So in my opinion Office 2007 Rocks BUT Outlook 2007 sucks!