Someone wanted specifics, so here is a specific, reproduceable case.

I loaded 6 CSV files each with 7,200 records of time and sound level data
(I'm an acoustical engineer) into individual sheets in one workbook. I've
done this for years with 2003.

Drawing a line chart with three of these sets plotted against a common time
scale, dragging the graph around, etc. is significantly slower in 2007 than
2003.

I copied the graph from one sheet to another to edit it to refer to the
other three sets of data. When I click on one of the graphs to select the
series, 2007 sits, and sits, and sits...minutes go by. Task Manager reports
"not responding."

I saved the sheet as an XLS file and loaded into Excel 2003. Near
instantanioous response. Same moodel machines, both running XP. Also tried
on a MUCH faster dual core machine, with no obvious improvement; app still
sits and sits.

If someone from MS wants to look at the files I'll be glad to send them.

At this point 2007 is nearly unusable for me.

Hello Mach,

I would like to get the files and perform some research on this issue.

Please send the files to me. To get my real email address, please remove
the ONLINE in my display email.

Thank you!

Sincerely,

Wei Lu

Microsoft Online Community Support

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Hello Mach,

I received your email and currently I involved our Excel enginner to help
me to isolate this issue. I appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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Thanks for the update and confirming you received them. Contact me directly
if you have questions; you have my e-mail with the files I sent.

"Wei Lu [MSFT]" wrote:

Hello Mach,

I received your email and currently I involved our Excel enginner to help
me to isolate this issue. I appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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Dear NormD and Wei Lu:

Has there been a solution to this? I have a similar problem which a 26
column by 700 row sheet. Seems to be a problem with the graphing system.

"NormD" wrote:

Thanks for the update and confirming you received them. Contact me directly
if you have questions; you have my e-mail with the files I sent.

"Wei Lu [MSFT]" wrote:

Hello Mach,

I received your email and currently I involved our Excel enginner to help
me to isolate this issue. I appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

==================================================

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that others may learn and benefit from your issue.

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Hello ram,

This issue is still under investigation.

I will update if any progress.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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To be quite honest, I'd really like to hear something more than "We'll get
back to you if there's any progress."

I don't expect an instant solution. But has the probelm been duplicated?
Anyone even looked at it yet? What's going on? There are a host of reports
in this newsgroup about this basic problem. Clearly something is going on.

Right now, except for the most basic spreadsheets, Excel 2007 is useless it
is so slow. A flagship MS product deserves more than this.

"Wei Lu [MSFT]" wrote:

Hello ram,

This issue is still under investigation.

I will update if any progress.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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Dear Wei,

Thanks for the response. I was wondering if you have been able to confirm
Norm's problem, i.e. do you see the same "slow" preformance as he reports?

Over the weekend I was at least able to keep my spreadsheet from "crashing".
Not sure exactly what worked but it seemed to be best if I saved the sheet
in 2007 format instead of "compatability mode."

One other thought was interaction of newly installed Excel with virsus
software. I am using MS One Care. At some point with One Care I recall a
message that programs may run slow as it checks all of the program files.

"Wei Lu [MSFT]" wrote:

Hello ram,

This issue is still under investigation.

I will update if any progress.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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I've tried it with both file types; there is no obvious difference between
the two in 2007. The same XLS file that crawls in 2007 flies in 2003. And
that's with the same AV programs. In addition, once the files are loaded
(which isn't the problem) AV is done with its checking as far as I know. The
slowness I'm referring to is just simple things like dragging a graph on the
screen or selecting one series out of three on a graph. It is nearly
instantaneous in 2003, and it crawls or stalls in 2007.

"ram" wrote:

Dear Wei,

Thanks for the response. I was wondering if you have been able to confirm
Norm's problem, i.e. do you see the same "slow" preformance as he reports?

Over the weekend I was at least able to keep my spreadsheet from "crashing".
Not sure exactly what worked but it seemed to be best if I saved the sheet
in 2007 format instead of "compatability mode."

One other thought was interaction of newly installed Excel with virsus
software. I am using MS One Care. At some point with One Care I recall a
message that programs may run slow as it checks all of the program files.

"Wei Lu [MSFT]" wrote:

Hello ram,

This issue is still under investigation.

I will update if any progress.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

==================================================

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that others may learn and benefit from your issue.

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Hello Mach,

We did reproduce the slow performance issue.

As I have mentioned, I did not get the response from internal team. I am
double check with them.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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Hello Mach,

I have send the request to the product team. Currently, I am waiting for
their response. I appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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Dear Wei,
Thanks for sending this on. Do you have any idea of timing?

In the mean time I am rebuilding my spreadsheet by copying and paste special
values one section at a time. I then built the equations (just sums) and
graph in excel 2007 and was doing ok until I added the sixth line to the
graph. It has now stopped responding.

Sincerely,
ram

"Wei Lu [MSFT]" wrote:

Hello Mach,

I have send the request to the product team. Currently, I am waiting for
their response. I appreciate your patience.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

==================================================

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Hello Mach,

Product Team confirm that this is a known issue in Excel 2007.

I am still contact them for whether there is any workaround.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

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These "performance issues" are not isolated to Excel 2007 only.

This is a real problem across the entire Office 2007 suite, not just
Excel -- I have the Office 2007 Ultimate Suite running under a new
(clean) install of Vista Ultimate on a very high-end Core 2 Duo machine
with 3-GB of DDR2 and FAST SATA RAID drives (4 of them striped)

Compared to Office 2003 Pro: Word 2007 is 20 - 30% slower at opening
files. Excel is 45 - 60% slower across the board at everything. Access
is generally between 60 - 80 times slower over Access 2003. Our biggest
complaints have been with Access 2007. In fact, the EXACT same database
running under Access 2007 is SO SLOW compared to Access 2003, that is is
virtually useless to us. And don't even get me started on Outlook 2007!
Just do a search in Google for "Office 2007 is SLOW" and check out the
growing body of complaints out there. Seems that MS released a very a
poorly optimized code base in Office 2007 in order to get the RTM code
out the door before it was really ready for prime-time.

Does the software work? Of course it does. Does it work well?
Absolutely NOT!

These exact same performance issues plagued Office 2003 when it was
first released -- remember? It took several patches and SP's until 2003
was really fully optimized and marginally secured. I suspect that in
time, Office 2007 will "get there" too -- but in the mean time, the
easiest solution for now seems to be: Go back to Office 2003 until MS
optimizes the code base in 2007! Not much of an answer -- but seems to
be one of the more prevalent "answers" out there right now.

Good luck!


Brian M

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

Wei, et.al.,

To add a bit more to the knowledge base; I installed Office 2007 Pro but
left the XP Version (including Excel 2002) on my system. I am running XP
SP-2 and recently upgraded the memory from 0.5G to 1.0G.

Excel files that ran acceptably fast in the 2002 version now are
incredibly slow with 2007. I'm not talking about just "slower"; it's
unusable. A simple operation like changing the symbol size on a scatter
chart takes over 5-minutes to accomplish wiht 2007 while the same
operation takes only two or three seconds with 2002. This isn't because
of my learning curve w/r the UI, it is because of some terrible internal
problems with Microsoft's code.

I can supply a copy of the file.

Regards,

Tim C.


*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

Hello Wei,

So, a month on, is there any progress on finding a fix or workaround
for this problem?

Thanks,

RichF

On 3 May, 08:57, (Wei Lu [MSFT]) wrote:
Hello Mach,

Product Team confirm that this is a known issue in Excel2007.

I am still contact them for whether there is any workaround.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

==================================================

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that others may learn and benefit from your issue.

==================================================
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I am having the same problem. I am a very small business owner with no IT
staff. Since installing Office & Excel 2007 my productivity has decreased
significantly. I no longer have the 2003 version, so I'm stuck. In my
appraisal spreadsheets I can make an entry, walk to the kitchen for a cup of
coffee and return to the computer before the change takes place. I tried the
same spreadsheet on an associate's machine running 2003 and the changes just
zipped right through.
I am verrrrry interested in whatever fix MS can make.
--
MaryH


"RichardF" wrote:

Hello Wei,

So, a month on, is there any progress on finding a fix or workaround
for this problem?

Thanks,

RichF

On 3 May, 08:57, (Wei Lu [MSFT]) wrote:
Hello Mach,

Product Team confirm that this is a known issue in Excel2007.

I am still contact them for whether there is any workaround.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

==================================================

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that others may learn and benefit from your issue.

==================================================
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I am also having the same problem. I thought it was the feedback sounds, so I
turned off all warings and sounds. It will run VERY slow. I have found that
if I run it right after a reboot, it runs fast. The next time I run it, it is
so slow I can go for a walk on a 480 row by 3 column spreadsheet (very small
- very slow). I cannot turn off the feedback sounds and they build up in a
queue that keeps getting worse. I don't know if the sound building up in a
stack is slowing down things. Does your Excel 2007 apps run okay after a
re-boot or are they still slow?

"MaryH" wrote:

I am having the same problem. I am a very small business owner with no IT
staff. Since installing Office & Excel 2007 my productivity has decreased
significantly. I no longer have the 2003 version, so I'm stuck. In my
appraisal spreadsheets I can make an entry, walk to the kitchen for a cup of
coffee and return to the computer before the change takes place. I tried the
same spreadsheet on an associate's machine running 2003 and the changes just
zipped right through.
I am verrrrry interested in whatever fix MS can make.
--
MaryH


"RichardF" wrote:

Hello Wei,

So, a month on, is there any progress on finding a fix or workaround
for this problem?

Thanks,

RichF

On 3 May, 08:57, (Wei Lu [MSFT]) wrote:
Hello Mach,

Product Team confirm that this is a known issue in Excel2007.

I am still contact them for whether there is any workaround.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

==================================================

When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.

==================================================
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It's a little faster after a reboot, but the longer I work, the slower it
gets. Twice, the entire workbook has gone into some black hole where I can't
find it - I think I've lost all the data only to have it resurface again
when I reboot. I've been wondering if it has anything to do with all the
indexing that goes on in the background.
--
MaryH


"Pause" wrote:

I am also having the same problem. I thought it was the feedback sounds, so I
turned off all warings and sounds. It will run VERY slow. I have found that
if I run it right after a reboot, it runs fast. The next time I run it, it is
so slow I can go for a walk on a 480 row by 3 column spreadsheet (very small
- very slow). I cannot turn off the feedback sounds and they build up in a
queue that keeps getting worse. I don't know if the sound building up in a
stack is slowing down things. Does your Excel 2007 apps run okay after a
re-boot or are they still slow?

"MaryH" wrote:

I am having the same problem. I am a very small business owner with no IT
staff. Since installing Office & Excel 2007 my productivity has decreased
significantly. I no longer have the 2003 version, so I'm stuck. In my
appraisal spreadsheets I can make an entry, walk to the kitchen for a cup of
coffee and return to the computer before the change takes place. I tried the
same spreadsheet on an associate's machine running 2003 and the changes just
zipped right through.
I am verrrrry interested in whatever fix MS can make.
--
MaryH


"RichardF" wrote:

Hello Wei,

So, a month on, is there any progress on finding a fix or workaround
for this problem?

Thanks,

RichF

On 3 May, 08:57, (Wei Lu [MSFT]) wrote:
Hello Mach,

Product Team confirm that this is a known issue in Excel2007.

I am still contact them for whether there is any workaround.

Sincerely,

Wei Lu
Microsoft Online Community Support

==================================================

When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.

==================================================
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Hello, all.

I am just a lowly programmer/physicist, but I think I have a hunch
concerning the problem. The new Excel charts look nice, but all the
graphics enhancements are the problem. If you use the ribbons to modify
the charts, the update speed is a little more reasonable, but still
sluggish. The problem can be seen from the use of overlay menus.
Modifying a chart by right clicking on it makes the chart refresh its
drawn area more, I guess, so everything slows. The ribbons allow the
chart to refresh once.

Again, I think the problems with the whole suite are graphics. All the
font/graphic smoothing to make things look more like a Mac are nice, but
they are extremely inconvenient if work cannot be done. I don't like
Macs, but if I have to upgrade to Office 2007, I would get one in a
second.

Microsoft messed up big time. They dropped winhlp32 from their operating
system, and now they have royally messed up Office. If this trend
continues, users will choose a different office suite (like Open Office)
just so they can get stuff done.


*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

Any word as of Sep 25th, 2007 if there are any work arounds or patches to
this "snail crawl" phenomenon with Office 2007? I am also experiencing
extremely poor performance with Excell Files in Office 2007. I removed Office
2007 and installed my old Office XP to test. The same exact files run
lighting fast with Office XP on the exact same machine with the exact same
configuration. If anyone has any information please respond. - Nick

"Bahali Bali" wrote:


Hello, all.

I am just a lowly programmer/physicist, but I think I have a hunch
concerning the problem. The new Excel charts look nice, but all the
graphics enhancements are the problem. If you use the ribbons to modify
the charts, the update speed is a little more reasonable, but still
sluggish. The problem can be seen from the use of overlay menus.
Modifying a chart by right clicking on it makes the chart refresh its
drawn area more, I guess, so everything slows. The ribbons allow the
chart to refresh once.

Again, I think the problems with the whole suite are graphics. All the
font/graphic smoothing to make things look more like a Mac are nice, but
they are extremely inconvenient if work cannot be done. I don't like
Macs, but if I have to upgrade to Office 2007, I would get one in a
second.

Microsoft messed up big time. They dropped winhlp32 from their operating
system, and now they have royally messed up Office. If this trend
continues, users will choose a different office suite (like Open Office)
just so they can get stuff done.


*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

Here's some good news. There IS a hot fix for this; came out in June (why
I've just heard about it I don't know!). Here is a link to a KB article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938538/en-us

Difference is day vs. night! I was told it would be in SP1 for Office.
Patch can be obtained from MS (see the article).

"Nick" wrote:

Any word as of Sep 25th, 2007 if there are any work arounds or patches to
this "snail crawl" phenomenon with Office 2007? I am also experiencing
extremely poor performance with Excell Files in Office 2007. I removed Office
2007 and installed my old Office XP to test. The same exact files run
lighting fast with Office XP on the exact same machine with the exact same
configuration. If anyone has any information please respond. - Nick

"Bahali Bali" wrote:


Hello, all.

I am just a lowly programmer/physicist, but I think I have a hunch
concerning the problem. The new Excel charts look nice, but all the
graphics enhancements are the problem. If you use the ribbons to modify
the charts, the update speed is a little more reasonable, but still
sluggish. The problem can be seen from the use of overlay menus.
Modifying a chart by right clicking on it makes the chart refresh its
drawn area more, I guess, so everything slows. The ribbons allow the
chart to refresh once.

Again, I think the problems with the whole suite are graphics. All the
font/graphic smoothing to make things look more like a Mac are nice, but
they are extremely inconvenient if work cannot be done. I don't like
Macs, but if I have to upgrade to Office 2007, I would get one in a
second.

Microsoft messed up big time. They dropped winhlp32 from their operating
system, and now they have royally messed up Office. If this trend
continues, users will choose a different office suite (like Open Office)
just so they can get stuff done.


*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

Excel 2003 versus Excel 2007 from www.add-ins.com

There are many differences between Excel 2003 and Excel 2007. Some of the
changes in Excel 2007 are improvements. Some are a major step backward.
We'll leave it up to you to decide which is which. The following are some of
our major findings when we compared Excel 2003 to Excel 2007.

We do recommend that if you have Excel 2003, that you do a custom install of
Excel 2007 and tell it to keep all prior versions. This will allow you to
use your prior version if you need it. The default installation of Excel
2007 automatically removes all prior versions. We think having the prior
versions around is a good thing.

Probably the best approach is not to upgrade to 2007 until forced to do so.
And hope that Microsoft will release a decent upgrade soon and the first time
(versus waiting for an SP2 version, which would patch the patches)

Excel 2003 Excel 2007 Comments
Number of rows Limited to 65,536 Over 1,000,000 Very few users need large
numbers of rows.
Number of Columns 256 16,384 Very few users need large number of columns.

Calculate speed FAST VERY SLOW We did a test of 10,000 calculations of a
small workbook and recorded key values. Excel 2003 did the task in 5
minutes. Excel 2007 took almost two hours. Excel 2007 was 20X slower. If
calculation speed is important, stay with Excel 2003 unless you have a super
computer with multiple processors.

Charting Speed FAST VERY SLOW Excel 2003 created 100 charts in 8 seconds.
Excel 2007 took almost four minutes to do the same task.

Chart Refresh Extremely fast, almost instantly Extrmely slow. Almost like
watching grass grow. Multiple reports of Excel 2007 being beyond slow when
one changes chart data. Even reports of worksheets containing multiple
graphs taking several minutes to refresh when selected.

Opening and closing files Fast Slow Excel 2003 opened, copy some data (via
a macro) and closed 100 tiny workbooks in less than 30 seconds. Excel 2007
took a minute and half to do the same task.

Conditional Formatting Limited to 3 tests Many tests are allowed The
improvement is very useful if you need conditional formatting that changes
dynamically. However, posts on user forums indicate that using this feature
greatly slows down Excel 2007. The alternative is static formatting (I.E.,
format when you need to) using the Conditional Format Assistant.

Customizing toolbars Very customizable Limited customization With Excel
2003 you can remove commands you don't want from the toolbars and add
commands you want. And you can create your own buttons for your custom
macros. With Excel 2007 you can not modify the ribbons. You can add buttons
to the quick access toolbar.

Color Palette Limited colors Essentially unlimited colors Excel 2003 is
easier to use and get different colors quickly. Excel 2007 gives more
choices. We call it a toss up as to the benefit.

Patterns in formatting charts and cells Many choices Patterns are no
longer available for selection Microsoft removed a feature that was very
useful for those of us who fax or want to print copies from a laser (non
color) printer.

Interface Menus and buttons Ribbons with buttons and text drop downs Some
will love the 2007 interface, some will hate it. Figure one to two weeks to
relearn Excel basics. It most likely will take over a year before you match
your past productivity.

Macro recording Fair Poor For some reason, Microsoft has made macro
recording worse in 2007, and often does not record actions with charts. Or,
the action that is recorded often doesn't work. At least in Excel 2003 one
got a starting point versus an empty recorded macro.

Macros VBA used VBA used Macros you wrote in 2003 or earlier versions,
especially chart macros, will likely not work and need modifications to work
in Excel 2007. Recording many not give you the clues on how to fix.

Macros and workbook protection No problems Major problems In Excel 2007,
if you password protect your workbooks and they contain macros, there is no
way to enable macros.

Charting - adjusting point values Easy to do by Impossible Microsoft
removed the feature that allows one to change the value of data points by
dragging the point on a chart.

Customizing Macro buttons Standard feature Feature removed One wonders
why Microsoft removed. Or did they just forget to leave in?

Stability Very few reports of crashes, fail to save Frequent user group
reports of crashes and not being able to save files Looks like Microsoft
rushed a product to market that wasn't ready for prime time.

File opening time No problems Many reports of problems of files not opening
or very slow to open Files will not appear in Excel 2007 when double clicked
and Excel is closed. Primary workaround is to not close Excel or to first
open Excel and then open the file.

Export/save as DBF file Standard feature Not available Microsoft removed
the export/save as DBF option from Excel 2007.





"Nick" wrote:

Any word as of Sep 25th, 2007 if there are any work arounds or patches to
this "snail crawl" phenomenon with Office 2007? I am also experiencing
extremely poor performance with Excell Files in Office 2007. I removed Office
2007 and installed my old Office XP to test. The same exact files run
lighting fast with Office XP on the exact same machine with the exact same
configuration. If anyone has any information please respond. - Nick

"Bahali Bali" wrote:


Hello, all.

I am just a lowly programmer/physicist, but I think I have a hunch
concerning the problem. The new Excel charts look nice, but all the
graphics enhancements are the problem. If you use the ribbons to modify
the charts, the update speed is a little more reasonable, but still
sluggish. The problem can be seen from the use of overlay menus.
Modifying a chart by right clicking on it makes the chart refresh its
drawn area more, I guess, so everything slows. The ribbons allow the
chart to refresh once.

Again, I think the problems with the whole suite are graphics. All the
font/graphic smoothing to make things look more like a Mac are nice, but
they are extremely inconvenient if work cannot be done. I don't like
Macs, but if I have to upgrade to Office 2007, I would get one in a
second.

Microsoft messed up big time. They dropped winhlp32 from their operating
system, and now they have royally messed up Office. If this trend
continues, users will choose a different office suite (like Open Office)
just so they can get stuff done.


*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

That's some good info, Nick. I sure wish I'd known about the install option
to keep 2003! I can't comment on many of the things you list, but as for the
graph speed thing, the hot fix took it from unusable to vsry acceptable in my
mind.

I do tend to play with large files. My most recent was 57 MB in XLS format.
The binary version was much smaller and loads a lot faster. It is not
unusual for me to have 2 days of 1-second data (2x86,400 points), so the new,
massively increased number of rows in 2007 is very desirable. Of course, the
plots are limited to 32,000 points, so I have to do multiple plots.

"Nick" wrote:

Excel 2003 versus Excel 2007 from www.add-ins.com

There are many differences between Excel 2003 and Excel 2007. Some of the
changes in Excel 2007 are improvements. Some are a major step backward.
We'll leave it up to you to decide which is which. The following are some of
our major findings when we compared Excel 2003 to Excel 2007.

We do recommend that if you have Excel 2003, that you do a custom install of
Excel 2007 and tell it to keep all prior versions. This will allow you to
use your prior version if you need it. The default installation of Excel
2007 automatically removes all prior versions. We think having the prior
versions around is a good thing.

Probably the best approach is not to upgrade to 2007 until forced to do so.
And hope that Microsoft will release a decent upgrade soon and the first time
(versus waiting for an SP2 version, which would patch the patches)

Excel 2003 Excel 2007 Comments
Number of rows Limited to 65,536 Over 1,000,000 Very few users need large
numbers of rows.
Number of Columns 256 16,384 Very few users need large number of columns.

Calculate speed FAST VERY SLOW We did a test of 10,000 calculations of a
small workbook and recorded key values. Excel 2003 did the task in 5
minutes. Excel 2007 took almost two hours. Excel 2007 was 20X slower. If
calculation speed is important, stay with Excel 2003 unless you have a super
computer with multiple processors.

Charting Speed FAST VERY SLOW Excel 2003 created 100 charts in 8 seconds.
Excel 2007 took almost four minutes to do the same task.

Chart Refresh Extremely fast, almost instantly Extrmely slow. Almost like
watching grass grow. Multiple reports of Excel 2007 being beyond slow when
one changes chart data. Even reports of worksheets containing multiple
graphs taking several minutes to refresh when selected.

Opening and closing files Fast Slow Excel 2003 opened, copy some data (via
a macro) and closed 100 tiny workbooks in less than 30 seconds. Excel 2007
took a minute and half to do the same task.

Conditional Formatting Limited to 3 tests Many tests are allowed The
improvement is very useful if you need conditional formatting that changes
dynamically. However, posts on user forums indicate that using this feature
greatly slows down Excel 2007. The alternative is static formatting (I.E.,
format when you need to) using the Conditional Format Assistant.

Customizing toolbars Very customizable Limited customization With Excel
2003 you can remove commands you don't want from the toolbars and add
commands you want. And you can create your own buttons for your custom
macros. With Excel 2007 you can not modify the ribbons. You can add buttons
to the quick access toolbar.

Color Palette Limited colors Essentially unlimited colors Excel 2003 is
easier to use and get different colors quickly. Excel 2007 gives more
choices. We call it a toss up as to the benefit.

Patterns in formatting charts and cells Many choices Patterns are no
longer available for selection Microsoft removed a feature that was very
useful for those of us who fax or want to print copies from a laser (non
color) printer.

Interface Menus and buttons Ribbons with buttons and text drop downs Some
will love the 2007 interface, some will hate it. Figure one to two weeks to
relearn Excel basics. It most likely will take over a year before you match
your past productivity.

Macro recording Fair Poor For some reason, Microsoft has made macro
recording worse in 2007, and often does not record actions with charts. Or,
the action that is recorded often doesn't work. At least in Excel 2003 one
got a starting point versus an empty recorded macro.

Macros VBA used VBA used Macros you wrote in 2003 or earlier versions,
especially chart macros, will likely not work and need modifications to work
in Excel 2007. Recording many not give you the clues on how to fix.

Macros and workbook protection No problems Major problems In Excel 2007,
if you password protect your workbooks and they contain macros, there is no
way to enable macros.

Charting - adjusting point values Easy to do by Impossible Microsoft
removed the feature that allows one to change the value of data points by
dragging the point on a chart.

Customizing Macro buttons Standard feature Feature removed One wonders
why Microsoft removed. Or did they just forget to leave in?

Stability Very few reports of crashes, fail to save Frequent user group
reports of crashes and not being able to save files Looks like Microsoft
rushed a product to market that wasn't ready for prime time.

File opening time No problems Many reports of problems of files not opening
or very slow to open Files will not appear in Excel 2007 when double clicked
and Excel is closed. Primary workaround is to not close Excel or to first
open Excel and then open the file.

Export/save as DBF file Standard feature Not available Microsoft removed
the export/save as DBF option from Excel 2007.





"Nick" wrote:

Any word as of Sep 25th, 2007 if there are any work arounds or patches to
this "snail crawl" phenomenon with Office 2007? I am also experiencing
extremely poor performance with Excell Files in Office 2007. I removed Office
2007 and installed my old Office XP to test. The same exact files run
lighting fast with Office XP on the exact same machine with the exact same
configuration. If anyone has any information please respond. - Nick

"Bahali Bali" wrote:


Hello, all.

I am just a lowly programmer/physicist, but I think I have a hunch
concerning the problem. The new Excel charts look nice, but all the
graphics enhancements are the problem. If you use the ribbons to modify
the charts, the update speed is a little more reasonable, but still
sluggish. The problem can be seen from the use of overlay menus.
Modifying a chart by right clicking on it makes the chart refresh its
drawn area more, I guess, so everything slows. The ribbons allow the
chart to refresh once.

Again, I think the problems with the whole suite are graphics. All the
font/graphic smoothing to make things look more like a Mac are nice, but
they are extremely inconvenient if work cannot be done. I don't like
Macs, but if I have to upgrade to Office 2007, I would get one in a
second.

Microsoft messed up big time. They dropped winhlp32 from their operating
system, and now they have royally messed up Office. If this trend
continues, users will choose a different office suite (like Open Office)
just so they can get stuff done.


*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

Hi Norm,

Can you tell me if you actually paid the $299 for the support call to
get this patch?

Cheers,
GSXR

On 2 okt, 15:21, NormD wrote:
the hot fix took it from unusable to vsry acceptable in my mind.

I called customer support and they sent me he
https://support.microsoft.com/contac...?scid=sw;en;14
10&WS=hotfix where I used 938538 for the KB Article Number and X86 for
the platform. I'm awaiting a response via email. I also asked the tech
support guy to make the file available on
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/938538/en-us and he said he'd see what
he could do. Try filling out the form for yourselves and seeing if
they'll send you the fix. If not, contact me and I can send it to you
directly once I get it.

good luck

-albert

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

Thanks for all the info. I knew there was a BIG problem but you have to
look for it on the internet. I know lots of people who've experienced
this slowdown firsthand so I'm surprised how little is out there.
Conspiracy? :o)

As an experiment I ran a spreadsheet macro in '03 and '07. 2003 ran the
macro in 18 sec, 2007 (w/ 4 x 3.2GHz processors) ran it in 2:33. When I
manually set the # of processors to just 1 it actually sped up the run
time by 4 sec.

I hope MS doesn't try to fool people into thinking this is a hardware
issue. My workstation is very fast, with all the latest updates, 4 GB
RAM, no junk programs running in the background. I run my box as lean
and mean as I can.

That's why I had to "upgrade" back to Office XP today. Couldn't handle
it anymore.




*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

It's now January 2008, and I notice this thread goes back to mid-2007,
without any (apparent) fix by MS. Someone indicated earlier that very
few people use large numbers of rows or columns -- I definitely do, and
that's why I "graduated" to Office 2007. I thought that the interface
between Access and Excel would be much cleaner when both could handle
the 1/2 Million or so rows I generally have in my files. Excel is
incredibly slow even in the simplest activities (I just waited 20
minutes to clear a couple of columns in a 70,000 row spreadsheet).
Inserting blank columns takes forever, even when there are no formulas
in the spreadsheet (I remove the formulas by paste special/values, just
because they slow things down so much).
It seems as if the programs (both Access and Excel) are "anticipating"
what a user might do, and pre-storing or pre-computing stuff --
otherwise, why would a simple column insertion or deletion take so much
time?
I didn't know about being able to save the old Office version when I
installed, so I either have to wait for a real fix from MS, or get on
another computer with Office 2003. Is this what happens when you have a
total monopoly in this product area?


*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

I followed some of the recommendations described he

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730921.aspx

like making calculations manual and using both ptocessors, but Excel is
still painfully slow. SP1 did noy help. My worksheet is only 500 rows
by 14 columns. The same worksheet works fast in Excel 2003.

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

The solution described here worked!

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/...xcel-2007-calc
ulati.aspx


*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

i have recently installed ms excel 2007 mainly because i needed more
columns than only 256 column available in excel 2001. However i found it
tedeouly slow while working with graphs. Even mere selecting a graph by
clicking it takes 15 seconds. Other tasks on graph take much longer
time. will any body pl help?

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

... I don't like
Macs, but if I have to upgrade to Office 2007, I would get one in a
second...

That's a somewhat strange opinion for someone in a group devoted to
VBA macro programming of Excel. Given that Microsoft announced they
will no longer provide that capability in the Mac version, that would
not be my first choice of platform.

I keep thinking of moving to Open Office, but the inertia of all my
existing VBA code keeps me with Microsoft.

Bill

Although many have mentioned graphs and large worksheet sizes, none of
these are the problem... Speed is an issue for some not very large
worksheets, even without graphing. See my previous comment for a
solution that worked for me... I think you periodically have to copy to
a new worksheet and re-fill the formulas.



*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

Slow Excel 2007 calculation in a workbook and one solution - Bob
Flanagan
06-Jun-07 11:29:10

Problem:

In Excel 2007 an xls workbook takes 2-4 seconds to recalculte whenever a
cell is changed. The workbook works fine in Excel 2003.

No external links
no macros
no range names
File well under 1 meg, with very few formulas - mostly data and sums
No conditional formatting
A few IF formulas, about 10-20
About 30 sum functions
Just one worksheet
Changing to manual recalc did not help
Saving as xlsx did not solve
Copying and pasting cells to a xlsx workbook did not solve
Clearing all formats did not solve
Converting all cells to values did not solve
Copying the worksheet to a new workbook did not solve
Deleting all cells did not solve!!!!
Doing an Edit, Clear All did not solve!!!!!

Solution that worked:
Created a new xlsx workbook
Selected the cells and did a copy, paste special formulas to the new
workbook

Changing cells in the new workbook resulted in no delay.

The above works if there is just one sheet in a workbook. I'm not
certain
how one would solve if there were multiple worksheets. Any thoughts?

Most likely there is some corruption in the XLS workbook, but none that
affects performance in 2003, just in 2007.

Bob Flanagan
Macro Systems
http://www.add-ins.com
Productivity add-ins and downloadable books on VB macros for Excel





Slow Excel 2007 calculation in a workbook and one solution - Jim Rech
06-Jun-07 12:06:06

Interesting work, Bob, but I don't buy that, especially the "most
likely"
part.


I doubt "corruption" would survive that, after all, what would the XML
equivalent of corruption be?<g

How about we say we don't know the cause but MS damn sure should!

--
Jim
Slow Excel 2007 calculation in a workbook and one solution - Bob
Flanagan
07-Jun-07 09:44:49

Jim, I agree. After several hours of frustration, I jumped to
conclusions
as to the cause. I'm gong to keep trying to find the cause - after
being
away from the problem for a days, I have some more thoughts on how to
pinpoint the problem.

Bob

http://www.eggheadcafe.com/software/...xcel-2007-calc
ulati.aspx









*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

Mr. Einstein,

If you're still reading this forum...

I am at wits end with this issue. I have requested the hotfix from MS
but have yet to receive it. Could you send it to me? We cannot receive
zip files here so just change the extension to something other than .zip
and I'll change it back upon receipt!

Hope you see this and Thanks!

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

Yeah, we have extension filters too. I usually reverse or rearrange the
letters like .jpg -- .gpj or .txt -- .xtt, but my favorite is to rename
..zip -- .pez, like popping out candy!

"Gordon Wright" wrote:



Mr. Einstein,

If you're still reading this forum...

I am at wits end with this issue. I have requested the hotfix from MS
but have yet to receive it. Could you send it to me? We cannot receive
zip files here so just change the extension to something other than .zip
and I'll change it back upon receipt!

Hope you see this and Thanks!

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

My new excel 2007 hangs up, does not respond to the escape key, as did
my 2003 version. Has uSoft put out a cure to this?

*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

I have a speed problem with Excel 2007 when using the SOLVER Add-In.
The same applicaiton runs just fine in Excel 2003 but takes minutes to
execute in Excel 2007. Has anyone else experienced this? Any
solutions? Help!



*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

This blog post explains how to submit examples of unsatisfactory VBA
performance in Excel 2007:

http://blogs.msdn.com/excel/archive/...requested.aspx

- Jon
-------
Jon Peltier, Microsoft Excel MVP
Peltier Technical Services, Inc.
http://PeltierTech.com/WordPress/
_______


"D White" wrote in message
...
I have a speed problem with Excel 2007 when using the SOLVER Add-In.
The same applicaiton runs just fine in Excel 2003 but takes minutes to
execute in Excel 2007. Has anyone else experienced this? Any
solutions? Help!



*** Sent via Developersdex http://www.developersdex.com ***

I noticed that the last time Wei posted was 5/2007. Has there been any
progress on getting a fix on the slow Excel issue?

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