Why is eveything so slow after upgrading from Excel 2000 to 2003?

[Spinner]

I upgraded from Office 2000 to 2003. I have [fairly] large workbooks (7-10
MB) with many embedded charts and controls (i.e. lots of shapes).

Following the upgrade, everyting to significantly slower. Of particular
concern is the rate of simply swicthing between worksheets in a workbook.
Previoulsy, I could toggle back and forth between sheets to compare charts.
The transission rate is now so slow, this is no longer a practicle option.

Any clues on how/if Excel 2003 can be tuned to run faster?

 

[David McRitchie]

Perhaps you can find something in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/slowresp.htm
there is nothing there specific to Excel 2003, though some of
the referenced links might relate more to 2003.

Some things to also consider. did the problem start with Excel 2003
does it get worse and worse once on 2003.

Quick things to try: clear the Internet Explorer cashe,
make sure journalling is not turned on that is if you have
Outlook installed. Make sure you are not saving files
for multiple version of Excel this would double the file size.-

 

[Spinner]

Thank you Dave,

Prior to your response, I had done some other checking and made some changes
imrpoved (though not fully alleciated) the problems.

For reference (and in aswer to your question) the problems I am expereincing
are entirely new. I was running Win98SE & Office 2000. I have done a lot of
VBA performance optimization (aka good coding practices) and general
spreadsheet design to maximise performance. All was running real sweet untill
WinXP & Office 2003 was installed.

Following a day or so of moding my VBA code and Chart Layouts in response to
both new features and "other changes" in 2003 I went into full operational
testing - and the proverbial hit the fan. "First level" investigations
provided no clues and that was when I posted my querie (and am very thankfull
for your reply).

I went through (in some detail) the suggestions provided by the first link
in your response. Many of these I was already aware of (as I have a done a
lot of VBA coding for my Excel projects). However there were quite a few I
was not aware of and have implemented the recommended changes. Mostly these
had to do with ripping back out some of the new features of Office (installed
but not turned on). I have also Re "Saved As" all files to ensure no
lingering "Pre 2003" data.

Over the next week I will revisit some of other "less critcal items"
idenftified in your response, while doing more perfromace testing. Will keep
you posted if you wish...

Thank you again,
Spinner

Perhaps you can find something in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/slowresp.htm
there is nothing there specific to Excel 2003, though some of
the referenced links might relate more to 2003.

Some things to also consider. did the problem start with Excel 2003
does it get worse and worse once on 2003.

Quick things to try: clear the Internet Explorer cashe,
make sure journalling is not turned on that is if you have
Outlook installed. Make sure you are not saving files
for multiple version of Excel this would double the file size.-
---
HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

I upgraded from Office 2000 to 2003. I have [fairly] large workbooks (7-10
MB) with many embedded charts and controls (i.e. lots of shapes).

Following the upgrade, everyting to significantly slower. Of particular
concern is the rate of simply swicthing between worksheets in a workbook.
Previoulsy, I could toggle back and forth between sheets to compare charts.
The transission rate is now so slow, this is no longer a practicle option.

Any clues on how/if Excel 2003 can be tuned to run faster?

 

[Mike R]

Spinner

Not having looked at the other links and not seeing it stated in your
response, do you have enough RAM. windows xp is more demanding on your
resources than 98 was. If you have 256 you can "get by" but you would be
better of with 512 or more depending on other uses.

Mike R.

Thank you Dave,

Prior to your response, I had done some other checking and made some changes
imrpoved (though not fully alleciated) the problems.

For reference (and in aswer to your question) the problems I am expereincing
are entirely new. I was running Win98SE & Office 2000. I have done a lot of
VBA performance optimization (aka good coding practices) and general
spreadsheet design to maximise performance. All was running real sweet untill
WinXP & Office 2003 was installed.

Following a day or so of moding my VBA code and Chart Layouts in response to
both new features and "other changes" in 2003 I went into full operational
testing - and the proverbial hit the fan. "First level" investigations
provided no clues and that was when I posted my querie (and am very thankfull
for your reply).

I went through (in some detail) the suggestions provided by the first link
in your response. Many of these I was already aware of (as I have a done a
lot of VBA coding for my Excel projects). However there were quite a few I
was not aware of and have implemented the recommended changes. Mostly these
had to do with ripping back out some of the new features of Office (installed
but not turned on). I have also Re "Saved As" all files to ensure no
lingering "Pre 2003" data.

Over the next week I will revisit some of other "less critcal items"
idenftified in your response, while doing more perfromace testing. Will keep
you posted if you wish...

Thank you again,
Spinner

Perhaps you can find something in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/slowresp.htm
there is nothing there specific to Excel 2003, though some of
the referenced links might relate more to 2003.

Some things to also consider. did the problem start with Excel 2003
does it get worse and worse once on 2003.

Quick things to try: clear the Internet Explorer cashe,
make sure journalling is not turned on that is if you have
Outlook installed. Make sure you are not saving files
for multiple version of Excel this would double the file size.-
---
HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

I upgraded from Office 2000 to 2003. I have [fairly] large workbooks (7-10
MB) with many embedded charts and controls (i.e. lots of shapes).

Following the upgrade, everyting to significantly slower. Of particular
concern is the rate of simply swicthing between worksheets in a workbook.
Previoulsy, I could toggle back and forth between sheets to compare charts.
The transission rate is now so slow, this is no longer a practicle option.

Any clues on how/if Excel 2003 can be tuned to run faster?

 

[Spinner]

Always nice to get help... so thanks... I was getting by on 128MB RAM and
a[relatively] slow disk with the WIN 98 / Office 2000 combo. As part of the
upgrade, though I took the system up to 512MB put in a newer, faster, Disk.

Hence, I was surpised by the degradation of Excel performance. I have now
ripped out many of the new Office "super features" (voice recognition, etc)
and things have improved markedly. From this evenings tests, I am now nearly
back to the performance levels of the old setup (and of course the new office
has some nice features). I expect in the next little while to iron out all of
the performance limiters - as between Daves clues and a few other related
threads I found, I have gained a much better understanding of what limits the
new system.

I guess it is fair to say I have had several years to iron out the
performance issues witb the old setup. So I am growing "warm" again to the
new setup.

Thanks again,
Spinner

Spinner

Not having looked at the other links and not seeing it stated in your
response, do you have enough RAM. windows xp is more demanding on your
resources than 98 was. If you have 256 you can "get by" but you would be
better of with 512 or more depending on other uses.

Mike R.

Thank you Dave,

Prior to your response, I had done some other checking and made some changes
imrpoved (though not fully alleciated) the problems.

For reference (and in aswer to your question) the problems I am expereincing
are entirely new. I was running Win98SE & Office 2000. I have done a lot of
VBA performance optimization (aka good coding practices) and general
spreadsheet design to maximise performance. All was running real sweet untill
WinXP & Office 2003 was installed.

Following a day or so of moding my VBA code and Chart Layouts in response to
both new features and "other changes" in 2003 I went into full operational
testing - and the proverbial hit the fan. "First level" investigations
provided no clues and that was when I posted my querie (and am very thankfull
for your reply).

I went through (in some detail) the suggestions provided by the first link
in your response. Many of these I was already aware of (as I have a done a
lot of VBA coding for my Excel projects). However there were quite a few I
was not aware of and have implemented the recommended changes. Mostly these
had to do with ripping back out some of the new features of Office (installed
but not turned on). I have also Re "Saved As" all files to ensure no
lingering "Pre 2003" data.

Over the next week I will revisit some of other "less critcal items"
idenftified in your response, while doing more perfromace testing. Will keep
you posted if you wish...

Thank you again,
Spinner

Perhaps you can find something in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/slowresp.htm
there is nothing there specific to Excel 2003, though some of
the referenced links might relate more to 2003.

Some things to also consider. did the problem start with Excel 2003
does it get worse and worse once on 2003.

Quick things to try: clear the Internet Explorer cashe,
make sure journalling is not turned on that is if you have
Outlook installed. Make sure you are not saving files
for multiple version of Excel this would double the file size.-
---
HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

I upgraded from Office 2000 to 2003. I have [fairly] large workbooks (7-10
MB) with many embedded charts and controls (i.e. lots of shapes).

Following the upgrade, everyting to significantly slower. Of particular
concern is the rate of simply swicthing between worksheets in a workbook.
Previoulsy, I could toggle back and forth between sheets to compare charts.
The transission rate is now so slow, this is no longer a practicle option.

Any clues on how/if Excel 2003 can be tuned to run faster?

 

[David McRitchie]

I guess memory is the obvious problem, and I didn't think of it, even
though that is the reason I've not upgraded my system or my version
of Excel. I think you want to see if you have a lot of paging going on
which as I understand it you would see if the red line is right up there
with the CPU usage line on the Performance graph. When looking at
your System Task Manager
within the Task Manager, View (menu), show kernel times

I have 128 MB RAM and am showing 252MB Usage, it really
slows down when Outlook Express is reading in postings and
Excel is up. I have Excel 2000 and Windows 2000 myself.

 

[Spinner]

LOL... Memory Size is certainly not my problem. With 512MB and paging to a
max of 1.5GB on a fast disk, that side of it is Ok (though I still appreciate
the inputs). And anyway, indirectly, you did think of it - as the link you
provided goes into memory size, usage drains and memory leaks in some depth.

It is these latter issues I focused on yesterday (i.e. what is using the
memory). This, together with ripping out "nice-to-have-but-probably-wont-use"
office 2003 features, improved things dramatically. I still have concerns
over a few things (identified the linked article) but the system is now
performing well enough to go back into production. (I was seriously
considering taking the system back to Office 2000 and ironing out the
performance issues on an alternate system. But that is no longer necessary -
so thank you again.)

Cheers,
Spinner

I guess memory is the obvious problem, and I didn't think of it, even
though that is the reason I've not upgraded my system or my version
of Excel. I think you want to see if you have a lot of paging going on
which as I understand it you would see if the red line is right up there
with the CPU usage line on the Performance graph. When looking at
your System Task Manager
within the Task Manager, View (menu), show kernel times

I have 128 MB RAM and am showing 252MB Usage, it really
slows down when Outlook Express is reading in postings and
Excel is up. I have Excel 2000 and Windows 2000 myself.

Always nice to get help... so thanks... I was getting by on 128MB RAM and
a[relatively] slow disk with the WIN 98 / Office 2000 combo. As part of the
upgrade, though I took the system up to 512MB put in a newer, faster, Disk.

 

[David McRitchie]

Could you supply information on what parts of Office 2003, Excel 2003
and Windows (version?) that you removed to get things running faster.

 

[Spinner]

Hi Again Dave,

The main things I took out of Excel was the Text to Voice feature and out of
Office were the "alternative inputs" (Voice and Hand writing Recognition).
These functions appear to resource munchers...

Other changes I made included turning off the Norton's Office Plug-in.
Though this appears to only affect file opening, which was not my problem, I
was taking a scatter gun approach at the time (i.e. if it's not crucial get
rid of it). I may turn this back on at a later date (once I have benchmarked
and can tell if it has any operational effect).

I also went through all of the files and re-saved (using Save As), in case
any were still "old format" issues I had missed.

Lastly, I turned off automatic file saving in Excel. Office 2003 has it on
by default and I thought MS may have solved the issues with the earlier
versions of Auto-save in 2003 (methinks they have not - but see later for
some exciting news regraging auto-recovery).

The above steps represented a significant step forward and, I suspect the
first was the most significant. Unfortunately, I did all before continuing
testing.

Other (more minor) changes included replacing a few, non-essential, VB
Activates with Selects. I traced through the code and found three or four
that had been left over from the last code optimisation cycle. Though, given
where these were, I suspect the effect of these changes was minor.

I have also removed a couple of Adobe start-up functions (Acrobat Assistant
and Gamma Loader). Though, again, I suspect these changes were overkill and I
plan to put them back (post benchmarking).

Of keen interest in the referenced article was Zooming. I had not previously
been aware that Excel graphics space grew as you Zoomed. The main operational
function of the system in question is a charting package (built in Excel). I
have built-in user controls to zoom the charts for better detail. I was
obviously using this during testing and stopped Zooming after I read the
article. Since then, I have resolved to rip all of the Zooming features out
and restructure the spreadsheets to provide maximum chart viewing area (based
on the screen resolution) while still showing all of the key data displays.
(LOL... a bit of GUI fine turning was due anyway).

Of outstanding concern to me are the issues raised over the print drivers,
especially in relation to HP (as the System uses a HP printer by default). I
will be looking into either replacing the printer in question or seeing if HP
has any solution. I'm not holding my breath on HP though. The last time I
chased them over an obvious (and reproducible) design flaw in one of their
drivers, they simply refused to do anything about it! (LOL)

Here are few more tweaks and things the article suggests. Though based on
where the performance is at as of today, I suspect I will not pursue them as
my highest priority.

Auto Recovery Feature:
On a separate note (and something you might enjoy if you don't already know
of it): During testing (and with Auto save turned off) I managed to crash
Excel. Low and behold, rather than just falling part, Excel now (optionally)
saves the entire workspace. On the way down, it prompts you if you would like
to save and restart. If you say Yes (the default), it saves all open (and
unsaved) files with new names. It completes its report to MS and then
restarts - with the original files and the "in state" variant opened. You can
choose, on a file-by-file basis, to keep or delete. Also, the old issue of
your files "being locked for editing" (requiring a reboot) has vanished.
Pretty cool I thought...

Cheers,
Spinner

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Spinner,
I've added a summary of your comments as to what really was important, and
point back to this thread in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/slowresp.htm#excel2003
so if you continue to add to this thread that would be appreciated as the thread is referenced.

You might also take a look at Charles Williams pages
http://www.decisionmodels.com they're back if you couldn't get to them earlier.
though i would mention that his pages are best viewed in Firefox (Mozilla or
Netscape) instead of IE, if you have a choice. Anyway he has more to say
of optimization performance.

 

[Debra Dalgleish]

Hi David,

Microsoft mentions the Speech recognition memory problems here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306537/EN-US/#27

Debra

Hi Spinner,
I've added a summary of your comments as to what really was important, and
point back to this thread in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/slowresp.htm#excel2003
so if you continue to add to this thread that would be appreciated as the thread is referenced.

You might also take a look at Charles Williams pages
http://www.decisionmodels.com they're back if you couldn't get to them earlier.
though i would mention that his pages are best viewed in Firefox (Mozilla or
Netscape) instead of IE, if you have a choice. Anyway he has more to say
of optimization performance.
---
HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

The main things I took out of Excel was the Text to Voice feature and out of
Office were the "alternative inputs" (Voice and Hand writing Recognition).

 

[Spinner]

Hi Again Dave,

....and thanks for the feedback. You will be pleased to hear the system is
now running faster than it did prior to the upgrade (which is what I
originally hoped for given more RAM, Faster Disk and the "Latest and
Greatest" from MS). So thanks again for your help. (BTW I would like to mark
the thread as "Answered". But I cannot figure out how to do this. Can you
tell me how this is done?)

As I said earlier I was previously aware of many of the other issues in your
article and these were a given for the upgrade. What I'd like to say to your
other readers is "what a great one-stop guide for Excel performance issues
this is".

Of note (for me) is that the Printer issue is still outstanding. Though, per
your article, I believe this is alleviated by taking out the Zooming features.

Some other inputs:
As performance is key to most of the systems I support, it is also a given
for me on Windows XP to "Tune for Performance" (i.e. My Computer >>
Properties >> Advanced >> [Performance] Settings >> Adjust for Best
Performance. Funnily enough, after this change, the system "Looks Like"
Window 98 but still "Runs" like XP (i.e. Faster and Smarter). For reference:
For some users, (i.e. non-power, low production, users), I leave the Windows
Visuals and Fast links on (i.e. ... Adjust for Best Appearance).

Regardless of user-level though, I would always recommend an approach of "if
isn't essential, don't install it" (applies to both Windows and
Applications). In "essential" I prioritise as:

A. Required for Production;
B. Will increase productivity, without significant training; and
C. Meets B. without bringing undue performance drain.
(this last always a trade-off for non-power users).

Sorry if the above is stating the obvious... but Not following this
philosophy on this install was what brought me unstuck (LOL)...

Take care,
Spinner

Hi Spinner,
I've added a summary of your comments as to what really was important, and
point back to this thread in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/slowresp.htm#excel2003
so if you continue to add to this thread that would be appreciated as the thread is referenced.

You might also take a look at Charles Williams pages
http://www.decisionmodels.com they're back if you couldn't get to them earlier.
though i would mention that his pages are best viewed in Firefox (Mozilla or
Netscape) instead of IE, if you have a choice. Anyway he has more to say
of optimization performance.
---
HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel [site changed Nov. 2001]
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

The main things I took out of Excel was the Text to Voice feature and out of
Office were the "alternative inputs" (Voice and Hand writing Recognition).

 

[David McRitchie]

Hi Spinner,
see you're still finding things to add. As far as closing the problem goes
it's the type of thing that never gets finished, but specifically most of the
regulars here wouldn't use the CDO interface except under duress such
as a corporate firewall preventing direct access to newsgroups.

It's fairly easy to spot CDO postings because of the use of anonymous
@discussions.microsoft.com but I digress.

Closing out a thread with the indicator is only going to be seen by those who use
CDO (X-Newsreader: Microsoft CDO for Windows 2000) otherwise known as
Communities. (CDO appears to stand for Collaboration Data Objects).
Most people will not see that indicator anyway..