This may not be exactly what you're looking for, but I open Excel first, then
the desired workbook. It doesn't hesitate that way. (I do think my issue is
AV but I can't do anything about it.) An alternate way is to open the
workbook and then when you see it's not opening click on the Office button.
I don't know why that works, but it does for me. Best wishes!

"Dr. Dos" wrote:

Win XP Pro SP3
MS Office 2007
Toshiba Tecra M5 1.56GBt RAM. 80GBt HDD free space, 2.0GHz
Centrino Dual Core CPU.

Each and every time I receive an .xls file from any source,
Excel takes at least 30-45 seconds to open it, regardless of
file size. I have turned off AV to test. AV has no bearing.
Once I saw a notice that Excel was operating in
compatibility mode. What do I have to do avoid this problem?