Excel Beta 2007 on PC: unable to handle very large workbooks?

[victor]

2 points. 1. 102MB XLS file slows down the Beta to a crawl. Like 5 minutes to
open it. Is this unusual or par for the course? And I have a DuoCore!

2. When saving as an XLSX file it's size is only 1.5MB. Is this common? How
does it do that?

Victor
This is Excel Beta version: 12.0.4017.1004
My system is:
OS Name Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Version 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2 Build 2600
OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Name xxxxxxxxxxx
System Manufacturer Hewlett-Packard
System Model HP Pavilion dv8000
System Type X86-based PC
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 14 Stepping 8 GenuineIntel ~1828 Mhz
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 14 Stepping 8 GenuineIntel ~1828 Mhz
BIOS Version/Date Hewlett-Packard F.13, 5/10/2006
SMBIOS Version 2.4
Windows Directory C:\WINDOWS
System Directory C:\WINDOWS\system32
Boot Device \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Locale United States
Hardware Abstraction Layer Version = "5.1.2600.2765 (xpsp.050928-1517)"
User Name xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Time Zone Pacific Standard Time
Total Physical Memory 2,048.00 MB
Available Physical Memory 1.29 GB
Total Virtual Memory 2.00 GB
Available Virtual Memory 1.96 GB
Page File Space 3.85 GB
Page File C:\pagefile.sys

 

[Dave F]

As for file sizes: I've opened 100mb+ files very qucikly in XL 2007. Does
your data have a lot of cells calculating? That could explain why it takes
so long to open.

As for the XLSX file format: as I understand it, this is an XML-based file
format, which apparently dramatically reduces the file size.

If you want more information on either of these two issues, a good place to
start looking would be the XL 2007 developers' blog, which can be found here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/

Not that many regular participants on this forum are familiar with XL 2007,
so you'll probably find better info at the blog link I give.

Dave