11/16/12, I realize it's been a while but this is still a relevant issue. We are now using the latest AD 2012 version with the updates that have come across in the past several months as well as keeping up with MS updates. Our IT people have been working with Microsoft over the past couple of weeks to install some patches to cure a known problem that ailed Alibre. Still having issues of either office or Alibre when opening a file where in the upper right hand corner of the window it says ( Alibre not responding or Outlook not responding or word or excel or PDF).
A few points -
The thing that is probably slowing you down the most is your network transfer speed. Consider your 30 part assembly - how big are all the files in total? Open it, do a Save All As locally in a folder on your desktop and see how big they are together. You can have a single part that's 80 megs or 30 parts that are 2 megs, just depends on what the parts are, what the facets (display smoothness) are set to, etc.
conservative on size of max file being 15mb. Did the save on the desktop marginal improvement, same errors with MS office and PDF programs.
If every time you open an assembly you have to transfer 50 - 100 megs, it's probably going to be slow to open. Any hiccup in the network transfer may cause weirdness, but that will happen with almost any application. Depending on the complexity of your network, number of users transferring at once, the network speed (100MB/Gigabit/etc) it may be slow.
I realize that, it's the errors and the not responding lock up. I can deal with a little drag.
Are you working remotely via a VPN for example? If so, you're definitely limited by your network connection.
No, never have and never will
If you get to the office real early before everyone else is there, is it significantly faster than at 1pm? If so, it's likely your network is too slow for your particular use, which is transferring big CAD files constantly, and doesn't scale with additional load (pesky coworkers).
Oh yeah this was a gimmie, it always runs better when I am the only one on the system. It's fighting for memory allocation.
If AD seems to freeze up while files are already open, consider looking at your autosave/recovery options. I'm not positive how that works on a network scenario or if it just hosts the backup files locally (probably), but try disabling the autosave and see if that's what's making the freezes happen after it's open.
This did help some but I lost work as a result of not keeping up with saves.
You mention errors: what errors specifically are you getting? Windows errors or Alibre Design errors? What are they? Screen caps would go a long way to helping diagnose. Network issues should not cause section view errors for example, or generate to last feature errors in most cases. Now if your design contains a boolean that references some part on the network, and the network happens to be unavailable at that moment, a regenerate may have issues. We really need to see the exact errors you're getting.
This is a good one and I have at least 50+ screen caps with various errors such as outlook unexpected error - outlook restarting (only happens when I am using Alibre). MS word or excel will just shut down then recover (only happens when I am using Alibre). PDF errors 2-3 different types (creating a PDF drawing). ALibre locking up just opening a blank template to create a drawing. Of course I've sent every - single - error - report to Alibre and not ONE singe bit of feedback from them. It's a black hole. I have all those saved in an outlook file.I'll load some pics when my machine gets back from IT. 
