Word 7 freezes
You don't indicate if you are using MS Office 2007 or just Word 2007. Have you ran the MS Office Diagnostics tool? You can find it in Word 2007 . Click on the MS Office icon in Word, select Word Options > Resources > MS Office Diagnostics. It takes a while to run, but may find some issues. Also, if you have MS Office 2007, have you installed the most recent service pack, SP 1. If this does not help, you may have to uninstall, then re-install the program (s). I have had no problems with any of the MS Office programs, they load quickly and without issue - so far.
To address another issue on anti-virus software, I installed AVG version 8 Free, and it works flawlessly with MS Outlook and has not caused any issues.
I also tried Bitdefender Internet Security 2009 but had to remove. It seemed to work for a while, but then my network connection kept dropping off after extended periods of inactivity (half hour) and I could not open Bitdefender again, it seemed to hang and I would have to reboot to restore both functions. I removed it and re-installed AVG free.
I had also tried Norton 360 Beta 2. but it crashed my system totally.