Excel very slow after update

Carlo Gonzales | Garde 31 Reputation points
2021-10-20T17:12:35.183+00:00

Hello,
I have an XLL Addin built in c++ here in my company that works fine for years.
In the past few days we have noticed that some functions are taking too much time to calculate.
After a lot of investigation, we discovered that the this only happens in the computers that had the latest version of Excel.
If I run at the same time the same workbook in two differents Computers , one with the latest version and other with an older version, the one with the older version calculates a lot faster than the newer (Im talking about minutes in the newer and immediate in the older)

The newer version of my office is:
Microsoft® Excel® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2109 Build 16.0.14430.20154) 32-bit

The older version:
Microsoft® Excel® for Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2109 Build 16.0.14326.20384) 32-bit

Does someone has reported some issue like this on this version?
Does anyone has any tip on how to continue the investigation this problem? Is there any kind of logs that I can find? I tried to see something on event viewer, but only shows me something when I kill the activity in the task manager. (the log 142205-logs-fm.txtis attached)
I also tried to remove all COM Addins , and still does not work...

Many Thanks

Excel Management
Excel Management
Excel: A family of Microsoft spreadsheet software with tools for analyzing, charting, and communicating data.Management: The act or process of organizing, handling, directing or controlling something.
1,627 questions
0 comments No comments
{count} vote

2 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
  1. Viki Ji_MSFT 4,411 Reputation points
    2021-10-21T05:05:39.3+00:00

    Hi @Carlo Gonzales | Garde ,
    Welcome to Q&A forum!

    According to the log file you provided, I noticed that your Office has been updated to the latest version(Version 2109 Build 14430.20306). I did some tests on this version(64-bit), but did not encounter your issue.

    Please go to "C:\Users\<User Name>\AppData\Local\Temp" folder to remove the all temporary files temporarily to have a check. You could also find this folder by searching for "%temp%" on Windows search bar.
    142285-image.png

    Besides, do all Excel files have this issue? What about other PCs?
    Please go to File>Options>Advanced and tick the following options.

    • Disable hardware graphics acceleration
    • Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange(DDE)

    If the above do not work, I also suggest that you update your Windows to check again.

    Hope the inforamtion is helpful to you.


    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".
    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.


  2. Ivar Meisingset 1 Reputation point
    2022-05-11T11:28:58.967+00:00

    Hi Carlo,
    I have had a similar experience with Office 2021, which is slower than Office 2019. Although this is not Office 365, I suspect that the problem may be similar to yours. Office 2021 is 64-bit software, and not only that, it is the first 64-bit Office version which actually works so well that a 32-bit version is no longer needed. This is a major change and upgrade in architecture. I suspect there are two issues, maybe three, which affect the speed of Excel: 1) 64-bit architecture is slower than 32-bit. 2) Making the 64-bit version compatible with everything people do with Office, and have been doing with the 32-bit version, is a major undertaking, and there must be a lot of new "compatibility" code that can slow things down. 3) Maybe there are security updates which also slow things down. In spite of this, I like the 64-bit version best. 32-bit architecture is outdated. It cannot use the power of modern computers. The move to 64-bit is a big step in the right direction, even if the current version is slower than we would like.