[R] Step Function Freezing R

[Jgabriel]

I have a question that might not be "kosher" here, but I'm running out
of options and need some help. Basically using the function "step" is
freezing R. I am running a model that includes a number of
interactions on a large data set with a number of dummy variables
representing whether an event occurred or not. Here's a simplified
example -

fit = lm(a~b*(c+d+e)*(f+g+h)*(i+j+k))
regs = step(fit)

at this point R freezes and alternates between "Not Responding" and
"Running" in Windows task manager. It wasn't always this way. I was
able to run the same model on the same dataset a couple weeks ago and
while it took the step function 20-30 minutes to compute the best AIC
and didn't exclude all the insignificant variables/interactions, it
served its purpose. Even after uninstalling and reinstalling R and
RExcel (which I used to load the data set), the problem persists. I
tried it on a smaller data set and still no luck. This is more of a
computing issue, so if anyone can point me to a forum better equipped
to help me out, I will owe you my eternal gratitude. I hate to fill up
space with such an uninspired question, but like I said I'm running
out of options.

Thanks,

JGS