Excel Takes Forever to Launch (2000)

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Whenever I attempt to open an .xls workbook (or to launch Excel itself), Excel will take a lifetime to launch. The HD works like mad for about ten seconds and other applications will occasionally freeze for a few seconds until everything normalizes when Excel launches at last.

Does anyone what might cause this behavior? I had a similar issue before and I realized that too many add-ins were opened on Excel startup, so I unchecked them all. Not even the Solver add-in left. That got the problem solved back then.
What gets me real curious (rather anxious) is the high HD activity during the process…

TIA

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Diegol

What is the size, and how many forumlas and worksheets and graphs and what have you do you have in this workbook that are you using?

How long has it since you did any maintenance (defraged the Hard drive) on your PC?

What else is running besides MS-Excel at the time when you launch it?

How much RAM do you have in your PC?

How fast is your CPU?

All sorts of questions need to be figured out before anyone can really give you an answer.

Please try your best to tell us about your PC, what Windows you are running, and what hardware are you using.

HTH

Wassim

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Hi Wassim,

This behavior occurs both when I open a worksheet and when I start Excel from scratch (blank document), so it’s not the number of formulae / images or other particular content in the document that triggers the annoyance.
I tried closing all applications before starting Excel but to no avail, so the key is not there either.
Rest of the data: Pent III 550 Mhz, 128 MB RAM, Win98. Free disk space: about 1 GB out of 20.

As for the maintenance… I don’t remember when I last ran a scandisk or a defrag… I’ll give that a try. The problem I described dates from about a year and I think I ran a defrag as soon as I stumbled upon it, however. But I’m not sure.

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Diegol

Sorry but I don’t want to be harsh, but keep your system in tip top shape, just as you like your car to be with gas, oiled, and ready to go… Oh you don’t oil your car every so often

No just kidding, run your defrag, and then reboot and then see if there is any thing different. It might also be a bad file on your system, I mean its known to happen.

Wassim

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Diegol

Sorry but I don’t want to be harsh, but keep your system in tip top shape, just as you like your car to be with gas, oiled, and ready to go… Oh you don’t oil your car every so often

No just kidding, run your defrag, and then reboot and then see if there is any thing different. It might also be a bad file on your system, I mean its known to happen.

Wassim

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Hi Wassim,

This behavior occurs both when I open a worksheet and when I start Excel from scratch (blank document), so it’s not the number of formulae / images or other particular content in the document that triggers the annoyance.
I tried closing all applications before starting Excel but to no avail, so the key is not there either.
Rest of the data: Pent III 550 Mhz, 128 MB RAM, Win98. Free disk space: about 1 GB out of 20.

As for the maintenance… I don’t remember when I last ran a scandisk or a defrag… I’ll give that a try. The problem I described dates from about a year and I think I ran a defrag as soon as I stumbled upon it, however. But I’m not sure.

Reply | Quote

Diegol

What is the size, and how many forumlas and worksheets and graphs and what have you do you have in this workbook that are you using?

How long has it since you did any maintenance (defraged the Hard drive) on your PC?

What else is running besides MS-Excel at the time when you launch it?

How much RAM do you have in your PC?

How fast is your CPU?

All sorts of questions need to be figured out before anyone can really give you an answer.

Please try your best to tell us about your PC, what Windows you are running, and what hardware are you using.

HTH

Wassim

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Have you tried the things in Jan’s post 290455 which is a STARred post and currently listed at the top of the main page?

Steve

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Wassim, Steve, Legare:

Thank you very much for your help. I’ve been away from my PC for 2 days (I mean… 2 DAYS!!!!) so I couldn’t answer earlier.

Far as I’ve read, the StarPost Steve referred me to is awesome. A quick check yielded the following:
– Run-> excel /automation (yup, no need to enter the full path with quotes nor the .exe extension) and Excel started smoothly like the charm it’s supposed to be.
– No Alternate Startup Location
– BUT… in the XLStart folder I come to find PDFMaker.xla, which must be some template used by Acrobat for the PDF toolbar or something. So apparently the problem lies there.

In 5 minutes I’ll leave and will be away from my PC for (STILL ANOTHER!!!) 2 days. As soon as I can take a look at it I’ll post back with the result.

Again, thank you very much!!

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Hi Diegol

[indent]

---

yup, no need to enter the full path with quotes nor the .exe extension

---

[/indent]
The reason that the post states to use the full path, is that some people have trouble starting Excel without qualifying the full path.
Using the full path and excel’s application name ensures the system actually finds and launches Excel.

When there are mutliple versions of Office installed (I have three…) this is particularly important, since otherwise one cannot be sure which version is started.

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We seem to get this complaint a lot at work (about Excel being slow to load), and we have entered this in our internal knowledge base as the best way to remedy:
[indent]

---

If a user is having trouble with an Excel file loading very slowly:

May be because one or more of the .emf files are corrupted or the Temp folder may have too many files in it.

Goto:
C:WindowsTemp or
Documents & SettingsusernameLocal SettingsTemp

Delete:
All .emf files
All .tmp files

---

[/indent]

Of course, I think most of this was covered in Jan’s STAR post mentioned above. I was just amazed at how well this particular little trick worked on most PCs in our bank.

Tracy
(edited for mispelled word)

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Hi Tracy,

Just curiosity, what kind of files are .emf?

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.emf files are created by workbooks that have controls in them (dropdown, listbox, spinner, scrollbar, commandbutton). I guess they are put there, so next time Excel can load the file they belong to a bit faster. But they sometimes tend to get corrupted and then cause trouble opening the file they belong to. Also, since the .emf files are not cleaned up, they tend to start slowing down opening and closing of other files.

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Hi Jan,

[indent]

---

I guess they are put there

---

[/indent]From this and from Tracy’s post, there means in the Temp folder?
A long while ago I used some controls but I took them from the Forms toolbar and associated some macros to them. Should this have created .emf files too? I point out that I used the Forms toolbar because there are controls in the Controls Pane (Cuadro de Controles in Spanish) Toolbar also and I don’t know if there’s any difference..

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I’m not sure whether or not Forms toolbar controls do this too.

Forms controls are simpler to use, but have less options than the control toolbox controls. The forms controls stem from good old Office 4 (Excel 5).

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I’m not sure whether or not Forms toolbar controls do this too.

Forms controls are simpler to use, but have less options than the control toolbox controls. The forms controls stem from good old Office 4 (Excel 5).

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I just tested and discovered that adding a control toolbox control adds an emf file, where-as adding a forms control doesn’t. Even changing the width of a toolbox control adds another emf. But when Excel is closed, they are (should be) removed. I guess when some crashes have occured, many emf’s can remain.

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I’ve never had to use a Controls Toolbar control and I don’t know how to handle them, but I’ll remember this for future reference. Your conclusion seems pretty intuitive.
Thanks

Reply | Quote

I’ve never had to use a Controls Toolbar control and I don’t know how to handle them, but I’ll remember this for future reference. Your conclusion seems pretty intuitive.
Thanks

Reply | Quote

I just tested and discovered that adding a control toolbox control adds an emf file, where-as adding a forms control doesn’t. Even changing the width of a toolbox control adds another emf. But when Excel is closed, they are (should be) removed. I guess when some crashes have occured, many emf’s can remain.

Reply | Quote

Hi Jan,

[indent]

---

I guess they are put there

---

[/indent]From this and from Tracy’s post, there means in the Temp folder?
A long while ago I used some controls but I took them from the Forms toolbar and associated some macros to them. Should this have created .emf files too? I point out that I used the Forms toolbar because there are controls in the Controls Pane (Cuadro de Controles in Spanish) Toolbar also and I don’t know if there’s any difference..

Reply | Quote

.emf files are created by workbooks that have controls in them (dropdown, listbox, spinner, scrollbar, commandbutton). I guess they are put there, so next time Excel can load the file they belong to a bit faster. But they sometimes tend to get corrupted and then cause trouble opening the file they belong to. Also, since the .emf files are not cleaned up, they tend to start slowing down opening and closing of other files.

Reply | Quote

Hi Tracy,

Just curiosity, what kind of files are .emf?

Reply | Quote

We seem to get this complaint a lot at work (about Excel being slow to load), and we have entered this in our internal knowledge base as the best way to remedy:
[indent]

---

If a user is having trouble with an Excel file loading very slowly:

May be because one or more of the .emf files are corrupted or the Temp folder may have too many files in it.

Goto:
C:WindowsTemp or
Documents & SettingsusernameLocal SettingsTemp

Delete:
All .emf files
All .tmp files

---

[/indent]

Of course, I think most of this was covered in Jan’s STAR post mentioned above. I was just amazed at how well this particular little trick worked on most PCs in our bank.

Tracy
(edited for mispelled word)

Reply | Quote

Hi Jan,

First off, your post is a great step-by-step guide to tackle down Excel startup annoyances, and I didn’t mean any offense. I just thought entering the command that way would work and… well, it saved me some time .

Secondly, to all the loungers that supported this lonely soul: I removed the PDFMaker.xla file from the XLStartup folder and that’s it, Excel is running smoothly . I won’t miss the PDF Toolbar either, as I didn’t even have it active. If ever I need to PDF an Excel file I’ll do it from the Print menu.

Thank you very much!

Reply | Quote

Hi Jan,

First off, your post is a great step-by-step guide to tackle down Excel startup annoyances, and I didn’t mean any offense. I just thought entering the command that way would work and… well, it saved me some time .

Secondly, to all the loungers that supported this lonely soul: I removed the PDFMaker.xla file from the XLStartup folder and that’s it, Excel is running smoothly . I won’t miss the PDF Toolbar either, as I didn’t even have it active. If ever I need to PDF an Excel file I’ll do it from the Print menu.

Thank you very much!

Reply | Quote

Hi Diegol

[indent]

---

yup, no need to enter the full path with quotes nor the .exe extension

---

[/indent]
The reason that the post states to use the full path, is that some people have trouble starting Excel without qualifying the full path.
Using the full path and excel’s application name ensures the system actually finds and launches Excel.

When there are mutliple versions of Office installed (I have three…) this is particularly important, since otherwise one cannot be sure which version is started.

Reply | Quote

Wassim, Steve, Legare:

Thank you very much for your help. I’ve been away from my PC for 2 days (I mean… 2 DAYS!!!!) so I couldn’t answer earlier.

Far as I’ve read, the StarPost Steve referred me to is awesome. A quick check yielded the following:
– Run-> excel /automation (yup, no need to enter the full path with quotes nor the .exe extension) and Excel started smoothly like the charm it’s supposed to be.
– No Alternate Startup Location
– BUT… in the XLStart folder I come to find PDFMaker.xla, which must be some template used by Acrobat for the PDF toolbar or something. So apparently the problem lies there.

In 5 minutes I’ll leave and will be away from my PC for (STILL ANOTHER!!!) 2 days. As soon as I can take a look at it I’ll post back with the result.

Again, thank you very much!!

Reply | Quote

Have you tried the things in Jan’s post 290455 which is a STARred post and currently listed at the top of the main page?

Steve

Reply | Quote

Check to see what files you have in your XLStart directory. Excel will try to open all of the files in this directory. Also, select “Options…” from the Tools menu. Click on the “General” tab. See if there is a path entered into the “Alternate startup file location” text box. Excel will also try to open all of the files in this directory.

Reply | Quote

Check to see what files you have in your XLStart directory. Excel will try to open all of the files in this directory. Also, select “Options…” from the Tools menu. Click on the “General” tab. See if there is a path entered into the “Alternate startup file location” text box. Excel will also try to open all of the files in this directory.

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