Excel Office 365 2016 So Slow that I cannot use it

Hey Rob:

I feel your pain. Personally, I still prefer 2010 (actually 2003, but that is dead horse), but that is just me.

The fastest, simplest, cheapest fix for your company may be to upgrade back to 2010 until MS gets off the pot and fixes this problem ...

Talk to your IT help desk. Your company may have a site license that includes direct MS Support. That would give them direct contact with a dedicated MS Support person. That sort of support request will get you better help, faster, directly from MS.

We on this forum, MVP or not, are NOT "Microsoft". Most of us (99%) are unpaid volunteers.  We provide suggestions based on past experience. We do not not have access to MS developers.

Lately (2013, 2016) is seems there has been a lot of "retrograde" improvements, especially performance wise.

Here are some more fixes that have helped others with slow performance (but I doubt they will help you).

Office 2013 Slow - Turn Off Onedrive Sync

<snip>

Perhaps uncheck the “use Office to sync files faster...” setting in Onedrive.

Reference: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_home-office_install/microsoft-office-document-cache-sync-client/6b011698-e0d8-4cc0-b3c2-674ba2565fc3?page=1

I looked at the Settings of the Onedrive desktop application and I saw that the option “Use Office to sync files faster and work on files...” was checked. I unchecked it and everything went normal, my CPU is now under control and there’s no CSISYNCSLIENT.EXE process in the background... Somehow, this started when I used OneNote via Outlook 2013 for the first time.

What this process does is build a very large cache of indexed Office files on your local drive.  For me, the cache was ~5GB, or about equal to the combined size of my Office files.  That would be fine provided I had extra space available on my SSD, but I don’t.     

I discovered that simply turning off this option does not automatically delete the cache and free the space.  To recover the disc space I closed the Onedrive application and then deleted everything in C:\Users\UserName\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\15.0\OfficeFileCache.   Keeping the “Use Office” option turned off has resulted in a much smaller cache. 

MS needs to document the cause/effect of this option so people understand the impact it has on their system.

</snip>

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**Excel 2013 is very slow in Loading Large Encrypted Workbooks**

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-excel/excel-2013-is-very-slow-in-loading-large-workbooks/3dc258b1-0d9b-492c-8ab8-2ba1df26fc7e?msgId=7f92ee0a-4a73-45ce-ac2a-80eb0e0ad1ae

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Anita Oakley \[MSFT\] replied

Hello Jacques,

I just saw this, and I can explain it. In 2013 we went to a more secure algorithm across Office - not just in Excel. Excel 2013 uses SHA-512. It makes only milliseconds of difference with one call, but in those cases where code runs, protecting and unprotecting many sheets, it all adds up to a terrible performance issue.

Because it is considered a security risk to modify that, all request for a change have been turned down. The development team will never do anything to make Office less secure. See http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/help/office-2013-known-issues-HA102919019.aspx for an explanation from the development team.

Thanks, Anita

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PS: This site is for asking questions like the one you have raised. But there are very few MS staff who monitor it. On the other hand, MS has setup subsites on the UserVoice forum that have been independently verified to be actively monitored by MS staff, including project managers.  MS looks at that for feature requests and complaints.  Copy your above posting and paste it into a new entry on that forum (include a link back to this question).

• Excel -  https://excel.uservoice.com/

"UserVoice.com" - MS Suggestion box sites

You can use the Office or Windows 10 "feedback" (**)applets but then your suggestions just fall into a black hole. You get no feedback from MS about your feedback.

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A better place to submit this type of feedback the "UserVoice" forum. You can submit suggestions like this to the forum either by "voting" and commenting on a similar existing suggestion or by creating a new suggestion for others to vote and comment on.

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This next link has a longer collection of MS UserVoice.com sites:

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http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows_10-desktop/ms-suggestion-box-sites-at-uservoicecom/7397119c-6d48-49e6-8d94-7bd0a50d214f

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Go to UserVoice, either through specific links I’ve provided below or create your own suggestions there. That is where MS is looking specifically for this type of user feedback to bring them back to reality from what-ever lala-land they are working in when they make these "improvements".  Comments (and votes) like these in UserVoice helped to convince MS to roll back the "phat QAT" buttons in 2016 and to at least partially undo the 2016 changes to the way the Pen input works.

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Please do copy the comments you've made here and paste them into comments in UserVoice. If you make a new suggestion, copy the link to your suggestion and post it back on this question so other people with the same problem can vote for it and comment on it. (You’ll get faster action that way.)

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This blog has a picture to show MS really is looking at UserVoice sites:

http://blog.indezine.com/2016/02/powerpoint-feedback-and-uservoice-does.html

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https://www.change.org/p/satya-nadella-microsoft-what-computer-users-want-changed-in-windows-10

• Public petition site

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Here are links to some of my personal “favorite” specific suggestions:

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QAT buttons not showing custom imageshttps://office.uservoice.com/forums/285186-general/suggestions/12512571-qat-buttons-not-showing-custom-images

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Bring back Picture Manger to the Office Bundlehttps://office.uservoice.com/forums/285186-general/suggestions/12498702-bring-picture-manager-back-to-office-bundle

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reinstatement of the option to Pin Folders at:https://word.uservoice.com/

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Bring back all of the old grammar checking rules -https://word.uservoice.com/forums/304924-word-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/10009743-bring-back-the-valuable-style-checking-tools-that

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Recently Used List Sort order: Date vs Alpha as of Feb 22, 2016

10 votes https://word.uservoice.com/forums/304924-word-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/10137741-recently-used-list-sort-order-date-vs-alpha

144 vote https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/10261443-recent-files-pane-in-excel-2013-was-pretty-good-b

Excel Suggestion “Under review” Nov 25, 2015 (wow, fast action)

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Petition to MS President to allow Windows Home users control Windows Updateshttps://www.change.org/p/satya-nadella-microsoft-what-computer-users-want-changed-in-windows-10 (The matching UserVoice site has been discontinued by MS)

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Don’t want Office 2016 tied to Userid -https://office.uservoice.com/forums/285186-general/suggestions/10517283-allow-activation-without-the-need-of-a-ms-mail-acc

Actually there are multiple threads with same point. As of Feb 1 2016 there are 785 votes on this question in multiple suggestions

ALLOW Activation without the need of a MS mail account. 386 votes

Office 2016 OEM without LiveID account 138 votes

Office 2016 Activation and installation without an email account 172 votes

return to the same process for activating Office 2016 that was used for all previous versions of Office. No "Live" accounts!  26 Votes

The Office 2016 Activation process is impossible for business's that purchase Microsoft licensing OEM. 70 votes

Activation without a live account. 7 votes

Need Office 2016 activation WITHOUT a Microsoft account! 6 votes

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Allow Business Admin Portal to manage Office 1-time payment licenses toohttps://office.uservoice.com/forums/285186-general/suggestions/11448504-allow-business-admin-portal-to-manage-office-2016

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Improve Highlightinghttps://word.uservoice.com/forums/304924-word-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/9389778-improve-highlighting

Make the full spectrum of colors that are available in Shading also available in Highlighting. I often use Highlighting to mark important or unusual text streams and I would like to search for particular colors of Highlighting .

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Visio 365 monthly specifically for Consumer licenses -https://office.uservoice.com/forums/285186-general/suggestions/10936428-visio365-monthly-for-consumer-365-users-and-oth

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Recreate the single text margin around page like 2010 and earlier -http://word.uservoice.com/forums/304924-word-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/9253599-bring-back-classic-text-boundaries- Marked as “under Review”, so there is some hope … <grin>

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Restore Radial Menu to OneNote439 votes total Feb 20 2016 ****148 votes Include radial menu in desktop onenote

  20 votes Radial Menu -

183 votes Bring back the radial fly out menu in the W10 Store version of OneNote -

  42 votes Bring back Radial Menu and Camera insert in Windows 10

  16 votes- Bring back Radial Menu for Windows 10 App

  25 votes- Keep the OneNote Windows 8 UI over the Windows 10 Beta UI

plus a bunch more pen requests

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Add mind mapping to OneNote -https://onenote.uservoice.com/forums/327186-onenote-for-windows-windows-phone/suggestions/6160979-mindmap-functionality?page=4&per_page=20 

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Custom installation from Office 365 (2016) / Return MSI installer option - ****https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/264636-general/suggestions/9939513-custom-installation-from-office-365-2016

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Word 2016 Style Pane bug -mouse pointer wrong https://word.uservoice.com/forums/304924-word-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/11196345-word-2016-style-pane-corrupt-or-buggy-after-update

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Add PowerPivot back to Access (and to Excel in all bundles)https://access.uservoice.com/forums/319956-access-desktop/suggestions/10284183-add-pivot-charts-back-to-access

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Add BI/PowerPivot back to Excel in all bundles -https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304921-excel-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/9018823-make-the-power-bi-family-powerpivot-powerquery

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'Worksheet' Tabs to Wordhttps://word.uservoice.com/forums/304924-word-for-windows-desktop-application/suggestions/10024812--worksheet-tabs-to-word

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I have just been moved (along with everyone else in my office) to Office 2016, having built a load of new spreadsheets in Excel 2010 ... we are experiencing massive slowdown in most spreadsheets, and again, no forum anywhere seems to have an answer.

Microsoft, this is unacceptable.

I have tried (starting from a Windows 7 Enterprise 64bit with 32bit Office 2016 (latest Deferred Channel release)):-

1. Removing conditional formatting, to see if that causes the lag.
2. Stripping out lots of info using the Document Inspector.
3. Disabling graphics hardware acceleration. (and checked my graphics drivers are the latest) - I even turned off a lot of Windows Aero features!
4. Saving as xlsb and back to xlsm again.
5. Running on various different machines with different configuration - all slow!
6. Unprotecting and unhiding all sheets, deleting all company logos (jpg), clearing all Print Areas.
7. Force calculation stack rebuild (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F9)
8. Started in Safe Mode.
9. I have *NOT* booted in Clean Boot, as I am only running basic McAfee security software and Websense proxy management, neither of which I will be allowed to do anything about.

It does seem to be related to the sheet itself, rather than macros - the worst sheet I have suffers from an immense (5-10 second) lag between hitting Enter (after cell entry) and the screen responding. But I only get a relatively minor delay in running macro loops with ScreenUpdating = False. I have had problems with Excel interacting with Print Drivers in the past (apparent file corruption when trying to save a file with company logo jpg images in, but magically works when you delete the images), so I wondered whether the same thing could be happening here? But then again, see point 6 above...

Does anyone have any new ideas? I really cannot spare the MONTH it will take to rebuild this spreadsheet (let alone the variants of it that we use) so I need answers, Microsoft - this ironically does not seem the best forum to get them, however...

Micboule:

There is no excuse for Excel to be slow on your hardware.  I just saw the following improbable solution to a similar problem for Word 2016:

2016 05 29- Word 2016 Slow – Related to KB 3035583 revison!

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-word/word-2013-slow-typing/80b487b5-119b-4a0c-9706-bcf2a413c350?msgId=8cb37b1d-0a43-4cb0-9b42-6d69907945b7&page=5

I have the same problem of extremely slow keyboard input with Word 365 (OS W7), but this has only just started happening (May 29 2016), having previously been OK.

This is what I have found:

Opening the same Word 365 docx file using Word 2010 on the same PC & all works fine.

Since this has only just started happening, I looked for the most recent Windows updates.

Un-installing KB 3035583 fixed the problem.

This is Microsoft's latest attempt to force users to move to Windows 10, but that's a whole new story.

Hi, 

I just upgraded my Excel program from 2007 to 2016 and have followed every step in this thread to try solving the issue of very very very slow operating with Excel 2016. I haven't been able to make work as I was with 2007. As soon as I get about 3 spreadsheets opened, it starts to come very very slow to operate. 

It seems that I'll have to cancel my subscription to Office 365 and come back to 2007.   :( 

Hope someone find the solution... 

Using a fresh new Windows 10 x64 with i7 processor, 10GB RAM. 

Regards, 

Micboule

Dear Bob Ancher,

Please tell me one thing whether this version (Excel 2016) been tested with END Users using huge data calculation in excel?

If your team gone through this test ?  please tell me what's the system configuration where this test has been taken. let me try the same configured system. But keep in mind that this particular excel 2016 slow performance is not an configuration issue.

Understand one thing this Excel 2016 performance issue is not from only one person, and also not from any particular hardware compatibility. There are many users replied this forum and even in our office almost 500 Emp having this same issue including myself. Did you people analysed why this is happening only in 2016 and not in 2010.

Maximum MS Excel are used by business purpose, so Excel Graphics is not at all important, speed and performance is very much important compare to every last version to new version, that is what the most expected by users.

Has this version of Excel 2016 is made for kids who plays with graphics and eye full of colours??

There is a big bug in this 2016 Excel version. " 30 minutes work has increased to 3 hours now to complete"

Please try to resolve this ASAP as we are facing many problem due to this ...

This is my system conf.