Excel very slow opening a file

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I recently purchased an LG Gram Laptop. It is equipped with an i7 processor, 32 GB memory, and SDD hard drive. Most applications pop open way faster than my old i3 processor Laptop. But at least with the old unit, I could see the progress some of my large Excel files were progressing to the full open state. This new unit after a fresh start takes up to 60 seconds before the progress bar shows up just above the task bar and then the file opens. There is zero slowness once the file is fully open. If I save this file close it and then open it the second time it pops right up and is ready to be worked on. My SDD is partitioned so that my data files reside on the new partition and not on the operating system partition. This is my first experience with BitLocker and the Laptop came with a free year of McAfee Total Protection which I have put a list of files in to be exempt from checking. This didn’t help at all. I’m not sure what is going on in the background that is slowing down the opening process but would appreciate any and all advice. It should be mentioned that I am using Office 2007 which dates back to the days when I bought the i3 unit.

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Try opening excel without a file. Is it still slow initially?
Try removing McAfee and testing. (The consensus here seems to be that you don’t need anything more than Defender for home use, with a regular Malwarebytes scan.)

cheers, Paul

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Excel pops open just a blink of an eye, no slowest at all. I have disabled McAfee but didn’t see any improvement. I will shut off BitLocker on the data partition.

Thanks for your response and suggestions.

Ed

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Reading from the data partition seems to be the issue then.
If the data is on an SSD is the partition aligned correctly?
What about reading other files from data?

Leave Bitlocker alone, that wither works or doesn’t and at present it seems to work.

cheers, Paul

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No, the issue appears to be with Office programs and only after a cold boot. Once I have opened and worked on the Office files and then saved them to open later do they pop open immediately. Office Outlook doesn’t suffer from this issue at all.

I tried to disable Bitlocker before receiving your latest email but the system indicated there was a problem with the updater which I have paused till given an OK from Susan to resume updating my Windows 11 Home edition. So by your advice I will leave Bitlocker alone for now.

Thanks again for your assistance in this matter.

Ed

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How are you opening the files? Double click on them or from Office?
Can you right click on one of the files, select “Open with” (you may need to hold shift down when you right click to see this option) and use Notepad (choose another app). Do not make it the default.
After this, try opening it with Office.

cheers, Paul

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I use one of two methods to open Office files. First I select the Office button to get the list of recently opened files and then select the file I want to work on. If the file hasn’t been worked on and isn’t in the list I choose the open icon navigate to the folder of choice and select the file name.

I did a cold boot then followed your directions. The results showed great improvement. I did this with my largest Excel file. It actually appears that your suggestion really did something to fix the situation.

Thank you 10 million times. It’s really nice to reach out for help and get it.

Hope you have a tremendous day.

Ed

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Let us know if the fix is retained. 

cheers, Paul

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I think we can close the book on this issue. It appears the one main issue causing this problem is McAfee. When I tried your suggestion I had forgotten that I had turned off “Real-Time Protection”. I just went through a long session with McAfee and everything that I am experiencing, according to them, is normal. With McAfee, you can place files on their exclude list but once modified that file name is taken off the list because it’s been modified. McAfee for me is one of those programs that the computer manufacturer chooses to put in. I have always used Eset. At least with Eset once you put a file name on the Exclude list it stays there till the operator removes it. I didn’t pay anything for McAfee so I’m going to either have to live with this problem or switch to something else. I will probably switch.

Thanks again for helping me.

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