Excel 2008 slows down to a crawl when Parallels is in us

[bgstults]

I have a problem that I've only been able to reproduce when using Excel 2008 for Mac combined with Parallels + Windows XP Pro.

When Parallels is not active or launched, Excel 2008 behaves normally. After launching Parallels (running Windows XP Pro as the guest OS), Excel 2008 becomes sluggish. Any sort of operation -- even basic entry of data in cells -- lags seconds behind. It is, in short, not useable.

Note that the sluggishness doesn't happen when Parallels is simply launched. It only occurs when the guest OS is booted. If I "pause" the guest OS in Parallels, Excel for Mac goes back to behaving just fine.

I have tried changing the memory settings in Parallels, to no avail. I am working on a 2.2Ghz MacBook Pro that has 4GB of RAM, so I'm certain that the machine isn't to blame either.

Has anyone experienced similar problems, and if so, have you identified a solution? Right now, this is pretty crippling for me. I've put this post on the forums over at Parallels too, in the hopes of increasing my chance of finding a solution!

Thanks.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

I have a problem that I've only been able to reproduce when using Excel 2008 for Mac combined with Parallels + Windows XP Pro.

When Parallels is not active or launched, Excel 2008 behaves normally. After launching Parallels (running Windows XP Pro as the guest OS), Excel 2008 becomes sluggish. Any sort of operation -- even basic entry of data in cells -- lags seconds behind. It is, in short, not useable.

Note that the sluggishness doesn't happen when Parallels is simply launched. It only occurs when the guest OS is booted. If I "pause" the guest OS in Parallels, Excel for Mac goes back to behaving just fine.

I have tried changing the memory settings in Parallels, to no avail. I am working on a 2.2Ghz MacBook Pro that has 4GB of RAM, so I'm certain that the machine isn't to blame either.

Has anyone experienced similar problems, and if so, have you identified a solution? Right now, this is pretty crippling for me. I've put this post on the forums over at Parallels too, in the hopes of increasing my chance of finding a solution!

Thanks.

Hi,

I have had the same experience. My conclusion is that this happens when
MacOS runs out of real RAM and starts using the hard drive as virtual RAM.

Open Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities folder) and notice that
all of your actual RAM will be consumed and that your hard drive has
come into play. Virtual RAM on the hard drive is molasses slow (exactly
what you are seeing).

The cure: install more real RAM, or learn to live within your actual RAM.

-Jim

 

[bgstults]

Hmm, I don't think this is it. As I mentioned in the original post, I have 4 gigs of real RAM. That's a ton -- far more than most users. The behavior/problem is identical, even after a fresh restart where Parallels and Excel are the only things open, and there are gobs of free RAM. So memory can't be the issue here (unless there's a leak somewhere, I suppose).

 

[Todd Aton]

I've been working directly with another customer trying to track down a very
similar performance problem. What's interesting is that the configuration is
almost identical: MacBook Pro, 2.4 GHz, 4 GB RAM, Parallels with XP client
OS.

Are you using Tiger or Leopard?

Would you be willing to send me a copy of your System Profile? You can reply
directly to me.

Todd Aton
Microsoft Corporation
(e-mail address removed)

 

[roblake]

I am running a MacPro 8-core with 8 Gb of RAM. I run Windows XP under Parallels Desktop running a real-time multi-window stock market trading package and Excel 2007 concurrently with a high-computation application and Excel 2008 under OS 10.4.11.

I don't see major slow downs that can't be clearly explained by the computational load. Yes, Parallels often shows as the top user of CPU cycles, but rarely more than 90% of a CPU.

Todd, I'd be glad to help you debug.

Cheers,
Robin Lake
(e-mail address removed)

 

[bgstults]

Just a heads-up to all: the problem persists after installing today's Office update (12.0.1).

 

[bgstults]

To keep this thread updated: I recently upgraded to a new MacBook Pro (2.4Ghz). After performing a fresh install of Office 2008, along with the updates, the problem persists -- albeit not to the same extent.

To be specific, Excel continues to lag, but usually *not* as much after a fresh restart. I assumed that RAM could be to blame, but right now, I have over 1GB "free" RAM as reported by Activity Monitor or top, and the problem continues. As before, "pausing" the virtual machine in Parallels allows Excel to behave normally again.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

To keep this thread updated: I recently upgraded to a new MacBook Pro
(2.4Ghz). After performing a fresh install of Office 2008, along with the
updates, the problem persists -- albeit not to the same extent.

To be specific, Excel continues to lag, but usually *not* as much after a
fresh restart. I assumed that RAM could be to blame, but right now, I have
over 1GB "free" RAM as reported by Activity Monitor or top, and the problem
continues. As before, "pausing" the virtual machine in Parallels allows Excel
to behave normally again.

Is there possibly a virus scan or OS file indexing scan going on? I see this
also, but only when whatever is running in Parallels is pretty busy.
Improvement by pausing the virtual machine leads me to think that this may
be the cause.

 

[bgstults]

Is there possibly a virus scan or OS file indexing scan going on? I see this

also, but only when whatever is running in Parallels is pretty busy.
Improvement by pausing the virtual machine leads me to think that this may
be the cause.

Unfortunately, no. My install of Windows XP is painfully simple: the *only* things installed are Windows XP itself, and Office 2003 (with all relevant updates installed for both). There's nothing out of the ordinary or third party that should be occurring in Parallels. Looking at the Task Manger on the Windows side also shows nothing special and nothing demanding resources. The only "third party" culprits that I can think of would be either the Parallels Tools suite or Boot Camp software.

 

[bgstults]

Another update: I have tried a fresh install again, this time *not* using a Boot Camp partition. The problem is not quite as bad for whatever reason, but it still persists.

To be clear, the only things that I have installed on the Parallels side are Windows XP Pro, Office 2003 (where I use Outlook, my main reason for using Parallels to be honest -- Entourage just isn't my thing), and Microsoft service packs and updates.

 

[bgstults]

I'm led to believe by a coworker (whose setup is similar to mine) that the problem may be related to the installation of Office 2003 on the PC side, combined with Office 2008 on the Mac side. It would be great if someone could comment on whether they have tried this configuration, and what the result was.

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

I'm led to believe by a coworker (whose setup is similar to mine) that the
problem may be related to the installation of Office 2003 on the PC side,
combined with Office 2008 on the Mac side. It would be great if someone could
comment on whether they have tried this configuration, and what the result
was.

I have parallels installed on my MacBook Pro with 2 virtual machines- XP and
Vista. Office 2007 is installed on both virtual machines. I see no slowdown
of Excel 2008 when either XP or vista is running with another copy of Excel.