XL 2003 very slow to Copy. XP SP3

[grahamg]

This is an XL only problem, Word 2003 is fine and so is copying fro
other applications, it is not a system problem, 4GB RAM, 256Gb RAMDRIVE
plenty of space and CPU power

I get the hourglass for 10 seconds when copying even a single cell.

The item appears immediately In the Win XP Clipboard viewer, even whil
the hourglass is showing in XL.

In the Office Clipboard viewer, the item does not appear until th
hourglass has gone.

There is the latest version of Skype Click to Call, and it is disabled.
I don't have ROXIO installed.

I saw a post suggesting detect and repair Office, resetting al
customisation, but I am reluctant to lose customisation over so man
years.

What do you suggest?

Thank yo

 

[Spencer101]

This is an XL only problem, Word 2003 is fine and so is copying fro
other applications, it is not a system problem, 4GB RAM, 256Gb RAMDRIVE
plenty of space and CPU power

I get the hourglass for 10 seconds when copying even a single cell.

The item appears immediately In the Win XP Clipboard viewer, even whil
the hourglass is showing in XL.

In the Office Clipboard viewer, the item does not appear until th
hourglass has gone.

There is the latest version of Skype Click to Call, and it is disabled.
I don't have ROXIO installed.

I saw a post suggesting detect and repair Office, resetting al
customisation, but I am reluctant to lose customisation over so man
years.

What do you suggest?

Thank you

Does it do this with all workbooks or just specific ones?
If with specific ones, it could be that formulas etc. within th
worksheet itself are causing the slow down. Perhaps lots of volatil
formulas?

Test it with blank new workbooks

 

[joeu2004]

I saw a post suggesting detect and repair Office,
resetting all customisation, but I am reluctant to
lose customisation over so many years.

Very wise.

There is the latest version of Skype Click to Call,
and it is disabled. I don't have ROXIO installed.

You have probably read of a problem with Skype Click To Call and Excel 2010,
as have I. Usually, the suggestion is to remove the feature, not simply
disable it.

This is an XL only problem, Word 2003 is fine and so is
copying from other applications, it is not a system
problem, 4GB RAM, 256Gb RAMDRIVE, plenty of space and
CPU power

I get the hourglass for 10 seconds when copying even a
single cell.

Any number of complexities in Excel worksheets can cause this behavior.

When you say "plenty of ... CPU power", what do you mean?

If you have a multicore multi-CPU system, Task Manager will give you
misleading information about %system utilization. For example, in a 4-core
dual-CPU system, if Excel is 100% busy on one CPU, Task Manager will say
that the system is only 12.5% busy.

Focus on the interactions among formulas in the Excel workbooks.

Also, Excel 2003 has some defects in the recalculation engine. I found that
Excel 2003 recalculates some formulas multiple times, when we would expect
it only once. (Excel 2007 and later do not.)

For example, if I have COUNTIF(A1:A20000,"something"), and I copy-and-paste
over column A, COUNTIF is recalculated after each cell in column A is
replaced (at least sometimes). Simply eliminating the COUNTIF (temporarily)
made the copy-and-paste instantaneous.

Of course, it is a very different problem if you can reproduce the slow
copy-and-paste with a new workbook that contains just data, no formulas.