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Slow Opening Excel 2003 Files in Excel 2007 (Updated)

When opening Microsoft Excel 2003 files in Microsoft Office Excel 2007 without having Excel 2007 already running you may find that files that a long time to open (20-60 seconds) while Excel 2007 or even Microsoft Office Word 2007, PowerPoint 2007 files take only a portion of that time to load.

The solution to this problem is easy and does not require any additional software other than the standard Microsoft Windows Explorer.

  1. Open Windows Explorer (explorer.exe)
  2. Select Tools | Folder Options from the menu
  3. Go to the File Types tab.
    Excel 2007 - Folder Options in Windows Explorer
  4. Select list item XLS (Microsoft Office Excel 97-2003 Worksheet) and click on Advanced.Excel 2007 - Folder Options in Windows Explorer, Editing Action for Microsoft Office Excel File Type
    If the “Appl ication used to perform action:” field the default value should be “C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice12EXCEL.EXE” /e” . Change this to “C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOffice12EXCEL.EXE” /e “%1″ . Remember to enclose the full excel.exe path and %1 in parenthesis. Since Windows 95 this is a way to escape spaces in file names; %1 will return the file name of that file that is being opened by double-clicking.You can uncheck “U se DDE” but Microsoft Office Excel 2007 will bring it back to what you see above when you next open it.
    Excel 2007 - Folder Options in Windows Explorer, Editing Action for Microsoft Office Excel File Type (Rolled Up)
  5. Just confirm (hit “OK” ) on all the Microsoft Windows Explorer dialogs and next time you open a Excel 2003 file in Excel 2007 without having it already running you won’t have to wait!
  6. If the above listed steps don’t fix the problem, simply add the Lookup Wizard add-in in Excel.  Some readers have reported that solved the problem for them! To install it click the Office Button, Excel Options, Add-Ins, and then click Manage Excel Add-ins | Go on the bottom of the window, select Lookup Wizard and click OK!

Posted in Computers, Microsoft, Software, Windows.


68 Responses

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  1. satish says

    excellent solution and it worked successfully.

  2. lc jorden says

    This fix did not work for me. Excel documents still takes 60 seconds to launch from a double-click. Any other ideas?

  3. Thoss Spitnale says

    I did what you said and the first time I opened an Excel 2003 xls file it displayed immediately. But thereafter when I opend one it is now back to taking 20-60 seconds. I can shortcut the time by clicking the Windows icon in the upper left hand corner. My default value had the /e but also had /n? Any further ideas?

    Thoss

  4. Gregg says

    I have the same problem with 2007 Excel and Word data files opening slow…while the main app opens just fine. I am running Vista Business 64, and I do NOT have a file types tab on my folder options. HELP !!!

  5. Bob M says

    I used the “%1″ and it didn’t work at first. It only worked when I finally unchecked the DDE box.

  6. Gerald says

    The /n is for the New. You need to select the Open before you edit. It it has work twice for me so far. We as a company are upgrading to Office 07 and this has come up. This fix is working for me

    Thanks

  7. Chill says

    I knew it wasn’t just me.
    Thanks for the info, worked great !

  8. MaxPilax says

    Unchecking dde didn’t work for me either on Office 2003. The option would be re-enabled by itself.
    This registry fix worked.
    Changed
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8]
    @=”Microsoft Excel Worksheet”
    “EditFlags”=hex:00,00,00,00
    To
    [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8]
    @=”Microsoft Excel Worksheet”
    “EditFlags”=dword:00010000

    Don’t know what other implications this might have, but so far all is good.
    Important note: BACKUP YOUR REGISTRY BEFORE ANY CHANGE :)

  9. Mauro says

    Hola:
    Versión 2:
    Solo para que no muestre los parpadeos a la hora de hace los cambios o cálculos
    Y un pequeño sumario de que hace cada instrucción.

    Anexen lo siguiente:
    Para el WorkBook: (en el ThisWorkBook de VBA)

    Private Sub Workbook_Open()

    Application.ScreenUpdating = False ‘ Para que no muestre parpadeos la pantalla al cambiar los datos
    Application.Calculation = xlCalculationManual ’ para que no calcule la Hoja Automáticamente
    Application.OnKey “{F9}”, “Recalc” ‘ ’ Anula el calculo
    Application.ScreenUpdating = true ’ muestra los cambios

    End Sub
    ‘————-Hasta aquí

    Y para cada hoja “Sheet1(Name)” (En VBA) donde tengan datos que cambien de valor, ya sea de PI o que capturen.
    ‘ desde Aquí
    Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Excel.Range) ’ Cada que cambia de valor una celda se dispara el macro
    Application.EnableEvents = False’ para que no muestre parpadeos
    Application.OnKey “{F9}”, “Recalc” ’ elimina el bug de excel

    Application.EnableEvents = True ‘ muestra los cambios realizados.
    End Sub

    ‘Hasta aquí
    Chequen los comentarios, jejejejeje

    http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa730921.aspx#office2007excelperf_ExcelPerformanceImprovements

    Compartir, dí no a la piratería.

    Saludos.

  10. NA says

    Tried everything. – uninstalled, re-installed, ran CCleaner to get rid of temp files and reg entries, did ‘‘Ignore other applications that use DDE’’, deleted personal.xls, disabled plug ins, deleted pdfmaker, NOTHING worked.

    The following did:

    In Registry, scroll down to >
    HKEY_CURRENT_USER > Software > Microsoft

    Here you will find a folder named ‘Office’. Rename it, for e.g. to ‘OfficeOld’.

    [This folder has subfolders which might include 8.0 and 11.0, which are probably for older versions of Office installed on that machine, and these dont go away even after uninstalling these older versions. Even running CCleaner on temp files and reg files didnt make them go away, and whatever the problems were they were causing. The new 'Office' folder which gets created when you open Office 07 for the first time after renaming it, only has Office 12.0]

  11. Zeeshan Haider says

    i add “%1″ but after again open the error is C:/Documents.xls could not be found

  12. Dilettante says

    Tried all the above solutions – none of them worked.
    BEWARE OF NA’s Registry fix solution – especially if you have a parallel installation of Excel 2003 or if you have customised menus and toolbars – this “fix” will wipe them out, and it still won’t solve the problem od slow opening files

    Also, BEWARE of the “%1″ solution – it will mess with the way Excel opens and will screw up the loading any macros that you have stored in your personal.xls(b) files

  13. Photonics says

    We import 2500 cells of data (text and numbers, no formulae) in four columns from another program into Excel, automatically opening Excel from the other program.
    With earlier Excel, this was virtually instant. With Excel 2007 it takes several minutes.

    Suggestion to Microsoft. A simple fix would be to allow the Excel 2007 users to reduce their Excel 2007 rows, columns and sheet count to the Excel 2003 settings. Let’s face it, having mega numbers of rows, columns and sheets may be a macho statement, but is a waste of time for 99.999% of Excel Users, so why saddle them with this bloated time and memory hogging overhead as the default settings.

  14. Vanassa Gaines says

    I have an excel file I cannot open on my flash drive can you help me

  15. R James says

    I had this problem and found that Explorer had become the default program to run these files. I just changed the default to Excel and it worked fine. Windows explorer – tools – folder options – File types – scroll and highlight XLS. Make sure it says “Opens with Microsoft Office Excel”

  16. Chris says

    No tools show up in my windows explorer, I am currently running vista any ideas how to do this fix or how I cant find the tools? I cant find anything that looks like the screen shot of the window above.

    • m3Rlin says

      Hi Chris,

      If you’re using Vista (this also works for Windows 7) then just press Alt + T and the Tools menu will appear. Although you can show / hide the menus as you wish the keyboard shortcuts continue to work (Alt + F, Alt + E, etc.)

  17. Chris says

    Thank you for the tip about Alt+T that worked to find the tool bars but now the screen shot is not the same as the options folder that appeared to me. Do you have any instructions how to fix the problem from the vista view? I dont have a tab that says file types after I get into folder options. Let me know if you can help, Thanks

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