Opening excel file directly is very slow

I tried a quick and full repair of Office 2013.  No help.  Defragged.  No help.  Changed default printer.  No difference.  Turned anti-virus off.  No help.

I have been studying this problem using the Procmon64 process explorer. I have two desktop systems, side by side, and one has the slow Excel startup, and ones does not. Both machines are Windows 10, and both have SSD drives. The differences are that the slow-opening  machine is newer, faster, has more RAM, was upgraded from installed Windows 8.1 and has Office 365. The fast-opening machine is older, slower, has less ram, was upgraded from installed Windows 7 and has Office Professional 2013. Both use the same Microsoft account for signon, but the fast-opening machine always used that account, and the slow-opening machine was changed from a local account when migrated from Windows 7,

I ran Procmon64 with a filter on the path to show either EXCEL or .XLS contained in the path. I have some things to note:

• The slow-opening machine opens a thousand registry keys and then there is nothing for a second, and then a few activities, and then it freezes for 8-9 more seconds, while the fast-opening machine has no such delays opening roughly the same number of keys.
• I was surprised to see Skype.exe on the slow-opening machine opening registry keys for EXCEL! However, quitting Skype made no difference.
• Both machines use Windows Defender for anti-virus, and shutting down real-time protection made no difference.
• I tried shutting down various processes including iCloud and OneDrive. Didn't make a difference.
• I reinstalled Office Professional 2013 on the fast machine, and it was still fast.
• I created a new local account on the slow machine, and then it was fast, but I don't want to change accounts.
• Both machines have SuperFetch turned on, and it shows in the Procmon64 references.
• Disconnecting from the network made no difference.

I tried booting in safe mode, but Office 365 doesn't appear to run in safe mode.

I tried this also on my Surface 3 Pro, and it was 2-3 times slower than the slow-opening machine, which would be expected because that tablet is slower. I tried it on a Dell Venue 8 Pro and it took about 12 seconds to open a file from Explorer vs. 3 seconds to start Excel by itself.

I'm having the same issue with Excel 2013 and Win 10. Opening Excel files local or networked take anywhere from 15-60 seconds. Opening just Excel is instant. Opening Word or PowerPoint is instant.

I am also on a Surface Pro 3.

I am having same problem occur after upgrading from Win8.1 to Win10.

1.  Only .xlsx files clicked directly have the delay
2.  Running Excel.exe is instant
3.  Running a manually created shortcut to an .xlsx file has the delay
4.  Running a manually created shortcut like "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\EXCEL.EXE" C:\file.xlsx has no delay because it's running Excel first with the file as a parameter.
5.  No other apps are affected.
6.  The shell open command in the registry for Excel is curious:

In the registry editor it looks like this:

zqP^V5!!!!4!!!!MKKSkEXCELFiles>Of1RD?I9b9j[2hL]KhO& /dde

Exported it looks like this:

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\command]

@=""C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office15\EXCEL.EXE" /dde"

"command"=hex(7):7a,00,71,00,50,00,5e,00,56,00,35,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,\

  34,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,21,00,4d,00,4b,00,4b,00,53,00,6b,00,45,00,58,00,43,\

  00,45,00,4c,00,46,00,69,00,6c,00,65,00,73,00,3e,00,4f,00,66,00,31,00,52,00,\

  44,00,3f,00,49,00,39,00,62,00,39,00,6a,00,5b,00,32,00,68,00,4c,00,5d,00,4b,\

  00,68,00,4f,00,26,00,20,00,2f,00,64,00,64,00,65,00,00,00,00,00

I believe it is structured that way as part of SPP to help validate the Office license in some way.   Also:

7.  Running excel with either method spams the Application Log with a ton of entries like this (newest to oldest) which vary slightly depending on whether it randomly decides to restart the rules engine:

Initialization status for service objects.

C:\WINDOWS\system32\sppwinob.dll, msft:spp/windowsfunctionality/agent/7.0, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

C:\WINDOWS\system32\sppobjs.dll, msft:rm/algorithm/inherited/1.0, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

C:\WINDOWS\system32\sppobjs.dll, msft:rm/algorithm/phone/1.0, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

C:\WINDOWS\system32\sppobjs.dll, msft:rm/algorithm/pkey/detect, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

C:\WINDOWS\system32\sppobjs.dll, msft:spp/ActionScheduler/1.0, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

C:\WINDOWS\system32\sppobjs.dll, msft:spp/TaskScheduler/1.0, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

C:\WINDOWS\system32\sppobjs.dll, msft:spp/statecollector/pkey, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

C:\WINDOWS\system32\sppobjs.dll, msft:spp/volume/services/kms/1.0, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

C:\WINDOWS\system32\sppobjs.dll, msft:spp/volume/services/kms/activationinfo/1.0, 0x00000000, 0x00000000

The Software Protection service is starting.

Parameters:caller=EXCEL.EXE

The Software Protection service has stopped.

Successfully scheduled Software Protection service for re-start at 2115-07-26T03:19:56Z. Reason: RulesEngine.

The Software Protection service has started.

10.0.10240.16384

The Software Protection service has completed licensing status check.

Application Id=55c92734-d682-4d71-983e-d6ec3f16059f

Licensing Status=

1: 040fa323-92b1-4baf-97a2-5b67feaefddb, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

2: 0724cb7d-3437-4cb7-93cb-830375d0079d, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

3: 0cdc4d08-6df6-4eb4-b5b4-a373c3e351e7, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

4: 221a02da-e2a1-4b75-864c-0a4410a33fdf, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

5: 2c293c26-a45a-4a2a-a350-c69a67097529, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

6: 2de67392-b7a7-462a-b1ca-108dd189f588, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

7: 377333b1-8b5d-48d6-9679-1225c872d37c, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

8: 3df374ef-d444-4494-a5a1-4b0d9fd0e203, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

9: 49cd895b-53b2-4dc4-a5f7-b18aa019ad37, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

10: 4de7cb65-cdf1-4de9-8ae8-e3cce27b9f2c, 1, 1 [(0 )(1 )(2 [0x00000000, 1, 0], [(?)( 1 0x00000000)(?)(?)(?)(?)( 10 0x00000000 msft:rm/algorithm/flags/1.0)(?)])(3 )]

11: 613d217f-7f13-4268-9907-1662339531cd, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

12: 7a802526-4c94-4bd1-ba14-835a1aca2120, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

13: b0773a15-df3a-4312-9ad2-83d69648e356, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

14: bbc56067-37f8-49dd-87b2-a418a9ba130a, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

15: bd3762d7-270d-4760-8fb3-d829ca45278a, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

16: c082c31b-2c4f-4e07-94d7-9181fa802c4b, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

17: c86d5194-4840-4dae-9c1c-0301003a5ab0, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

18: d6eadb3b-5ca8-4a6b-986e-35b550756111, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

19: ef51e000-2659-4f25-8345-3de70a9cf4c4, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

20: fe74f55b-0338-41d6-b267-4a201abe7285, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

21: 4a8149bb-7d61-49f4-8822-82c7bf88d64b, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

22: ec67814b-30e6-4a50-bf7b-d55daf729d1e, 1, 0 [(0 [0xC004F014, 0, 0], [(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)(?)])(1 )(2 )(3 )]

I think SPP is broken for Excel.