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I was wondering if anyone could recommend a solution for my problem. While working, I'm constantly opening and closing documents for Word, Excel, Adobe Acrobat, etc. Frequently, I close an entire program because I don't have any more documents opened for the moment.

But, a few minutes later, I'll have to open a document in that program. Since the program is restarting, it takes a while for the document to open up. (I've got an i7.) I hate the wait!

Is there a way to keep a program constantly running in the background so that documents can be opened quickly?

I was thinking of using a RAMDisk if I can't do the above. That way everything is kept in RAM so programs will move the same speed as if the program was already open.

I tried using RAMDisk programs but I couldn't get any of them to work. (SoftPerfect RAM Disk and Dataram RAMDisk) I got about 64 gigs of RAM to try to pull off this little project. Unfortunately, it's just that I couldn't get the programs to work. They are pretty old and stale. It seems all RAMDisk programs are.

Is there anything that you, guys suggest? Is there a RAMDisk that you suggest? Or, is there some way to keep the Acrobat, Word, and Excel application constantly opened in memory, even if there is no document opened?

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  • RAM disk is not the solution for this. MS Office is still installed on the main disk so it won't be able to take advantage of the RAM disk. Use an app to hide programs to notification area instead
    – phuclv
    Apr 12, 2020 at 16:11
  • Thanks for your help, phyclv. I have been trying to figure out a solution in the past few days, posting on several sites but no one can give me a good answer. I can't hide/minimize a program something like Microsoft Word or Nuance Power PDF. When you close the last document, a window still remains. If you minimize, it goes to the taskbar which then messes up with my mind about what's truly open. Any other suggestions can you think of? I can't find an app that hides programs to the notification area.
    – QuietInMontana
    Apr 16, 2020 at 13:41
  • What are your expectations? How many seconds or milliseconds are acceptable for you? The main speed increase for Word usually is to disable all plugins. This decreased the startup speed from 13 to 5 seconds on my machine. A RAMDisk won't help.
    – Thomas Weller
    Apr 25, 2020 at 22:19

3 Answers 3

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I am using free Starwind RAM - https://www.starwindsoftware.com/high-performance-ram-disk-emulator

500k IOPS achieved.

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  • Batistuta, I'll really give it a go today. Try it out. It'll cost me several hours but will try it.
    – QuietInMontana
    Apr 16, 2020 at 13:43
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This is NOT an answer to the RAMDisk part of your question, because the software you probably need is what you already have (Office, Adobe Acrobat, etc.)

In some versions of MS Word, there are different ways to close a document, such as the 3 shown in the image.

enter image description here

Methods 1 and 3 close the application if the document is the last one. This is equivalent to pressing Alt+F4.

Method 2 (Click File then Close, NOT Exit) closes the document and keeps MS Word running with an empty background (no loaded document). This is equivalent to pressing Ctrl+F4.

The same thing applies to other programs (MS Excel, Acrobat Reader, etc.).

This way, when you load a new document, the program won't be re-loaded from scratch.

Also, if the program closes and re-launches, even if you save the documents on a super-fast RAMDisk, the program itself will still be loaded from your installation disk, which will prevent you from getting all the speed gain you’re hoping for.

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  • The thing is that an empty background still remains. I know it seems stupid but it's really annoying. I want to get rid of that.
    – QuietInMontana
    Apr 16, 2020 at 13:44
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I've used the open source ImDisk with good results https://sourceforge.net/projects/imdisk-toolkit/

I'm not sure this will solve your issue though because with 64GB of RAM, the operating system should be caching those programs' files in memory anyways.

If you wanted to script something to keep them open in the background, you could use AutoHotKey to do so (perhaps program it to detect if the program isn't running and if so then start it hidden but detect the window title change which would occur when a file is opened and show it).

As a side note, for Acrobat in particular I believe at least at one point it had a speed launcher to accelerate opening - not sure if this is still enabled / installed by default.

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  • Acrobat has a speed launcher but I don't see a bit of difference. I'll try the AutoHotkey route but I checked already and found nothing before.
    – QuietInMontana
    Apr 16, 2020 at 13:45
  • Where can I get a clean copy of Imdisk? I checked it with virus checkers and it comes up unclean.
    – QuietInMontana
    Apr 25, 2020 at 17:01
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    @JohnGreer I just downloaded from SourceForge which sent me to cfhcable.dl.sourceforge.net/project/imdisk-toolkit/20200412/… and after I downloaded it I uploaded to VirusTotal.com and it came back clean out of 60 scanners other than 1 I hadn't heard of (results at virustotal.com/gui/file/…)
    – g491
    Apr 26, 2020 at 0:17

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