Weird Office 2007 SP2 problem

MarcLister · 10 May 2009 at 19:19

I've noticed for some time that when I open a spreadsheet in Excel's new 2007 xlsx format that if I press a button to enter some text or a number there is a lag between me pressing the button and the relevant letter or number being entered into the spreadsheet.

I see this most often in my Diabetes spreadsheet which I use to record my blood sugar levels. Using Task Manager and Process Explorer I'm able to see that the processor usage jumps from 0% to about 30% for 5-7 seconds immediately after double-clicking on the spreadsheet shortcut on my desktop. It is only when the processor usage drops back below about 20% that I can enter text or numbers and they appear on the screen right away.

Since the spreadsheets are on the same physical disk as my MP3 collection which Winamp is playing I paused Winamp to see if I'm pushing the disk to play MP3 files and open a spreadsheet. The delay still occurs when Winamp is paused. I've just shut Winamp down and the delay is still there.

Thought it could be NOD32 v4 interfering with the spreadsheets themselves so I disabled the real-time protection. No change. Perhaps NOD32 is affecting the actual Excel executable so I add the Office 2007 folder in my Program Files (x86) to the exclusions section of NOD32. Still nothing. So I decide to do some googling and it seems there is similar stuff happening to others but the pretty common suggestion of adding or activating an add-in doesn't work for me. Now I'm thinking its an Office wide problem and not just Excel, so I open a Word document I've got and the same thing happens. The processor usage just surges from 0% to about 30%. So I'm fairly confident that when I run an Office 2007 program something is causing the processor usage to rise a heck of a lot and stop me from entering text immediately into either spreadsheets or text documents. Since I've added the entire Office 2007 installation folder to the NOD32 exclusions and disabled NOD32 temporarily I'm quite satisfied it isn't my AV. Indeed Process Explorer shows that the NOD32 process goes from 0% to about 0.74%. The Word or Excel executable is still going from 0% to 30% so it isn't the AV.

I do regular scans with Malwarebytes, I'm immunised with Spybot and I've got Spywareblaster installed. I haven't run a Hijackthis log yet but will do so just to be sure I've no nasties hidden. And with NOD32 I'm fairly confident I've not let anything in. I also ran a fairly comprehensive scan of my two internal HDDs and my external HDD last week when I finally got NOD32 v4 to install on my PC.

My PC is running Vista Home Premium x64 with SP1. CPU is Q9650 with 4Gb RAM so I'm satisfied my PC is fast enough to cope with Excel or Word loading up. I can tell you that opening Excel without opening a spreadsheet but then entering data into a yet unsaved spreadsheet is absolutely fine. There is some issue with Office 2007 and me opening saved Office files that it can't cope with. Same for Word. Run Word on its own and I can type instantly.

Any ideas then as to what's going on? Getting pretty fed up here. I know that opening a saved file is the problem as opening Word and Excel on their own is OK. Its a Word document or Excel spreadsheet being opened that causes this problem. The files I'm opening are on this PC and not network files or anything like that. Everything is on a local HDD.

Will update this post with a Hijackthis log when I've run it.

Edit: And here it is!

Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.2
Scan saved at 19:20:39, on 10/05/2009
Platform: Windows Vista SP1 (WinNT 6.00.1905)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v8.00 (8.00.6001.18702)
Boot mode: Normal

Running processes:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Launchy\Launchy.exe
C:\Program Files\Logitech\SetPoint\x86\SetPoint32.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Messenger\msnmsgr.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Opera\Opera.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Winamp\winamp.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Winamp\elevator.exe
C:\Program Files (x86)\Trend Micro\HijackThis\HijackThis.exe

R1 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = about:blank
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Page_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Default_Search_URL = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R1 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Search Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=54896
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Start Page = http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=69157
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,SearchAssistant =
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Search,CustomizeSearch =
R0 - HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main,Local Page = C:\Windows\SysWOW64\blank.htm
R0 - HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar,LinksFolderName =
O1 - Hosts: ::1 localhost
O2 - BHO: (no name) - {7E853D72-626A-48EC-A868-BA8D5E23E045} - (no file)
O2 - BHO: Java(tm) Plug-In 2 SSV Helper - {DBC80044-A445-435b-BC74-9C25C1C588A9} - C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre6\bin\jp2ssv.dll
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\Run: [Sidebar] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\Sidebar.exe /detectMem (User 'LOCAL SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-19\..\Run: [WindowsWelcomeCenter] rundll32.exe oobefldr.dll,ShowWelcomeCenter (User 'LOCAL SERVICE')
O4 - HKUS\S-1-5-20\..\Run: [Sidebar] %ProgramFiles%\Windows Sidebar\Sidebar.exe /detectMem (User 'NETWORK SERVICE')
O4 - Global Startup: Launchy.lnk = C:\Program Files (x86)\Launchy\Launchy.exe
O4 - Global Startup: Logitech SetPoint.lnk = ?
O8 - Extra context menu item: E&xport to Microsoft Excel - res://C:\PROGRA~4\Office12\EXCEL.EXE/3000
O13 - Gopher Prefix:
O15 - Trusted Zone: http://download.windowsupdate.com
O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\Alg.exe,-112 (ALG) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\alg.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: AMD External Events Utility - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\atiesrxx.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: ESET HTTP Server (EhttpSrv) - ESET - C:\Program Files\NOD32\EHttpSrv.exe
O23 - Service: ESET Service (ekrn) - ESET - C:\Program Files\NOD32\x86\ekrn.exe
O23 - Service: @keyiso.dll,-100 (KeyIso) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @comres.dll,-2797 (MSDTC) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\msdtc.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\System32\netlogon.dll,-102 (Netlogon) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\psbase.dll,-300 (ProtectedStorage) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\Locator.exe,-2 (RpcLocator) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\locator.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\samsrv.dll,-1 (SamSs) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\lsass.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\SLsvc.exe,-101 (slsvc) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\SLsvc.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\snmptrap.exe,-3 (SNMPTRAP) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\snmptrap.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\spoolsv.exe,-1 (Spooler) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\spoolsv.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: Steam Client Service - Valve Corporation - C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Steam\SteamService.exe
O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\ui0detect.exe,-101 (UI0Detect) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\UI0Detect.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%SystemRoot%\system32\vds.exe,-100 (vds) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\System32\vds.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%systemroot%\system32\vssvc.exe,-102 (VSS) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\vssvc.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%Systemroot%\system32\wbem\wmiapsrv.exe,-110 (wmiApSrv) - Unknown owner - C:\Windows\system32\wbem\WmiApSrv.exe (file missing)
O23 - Service: @%ProgramFiles%\Windows Media Player\wmpnetwk.exe,-101 (WMPNetworkSvc) - Unknown owner - C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Media Player\wmpnetwk.exe (file missing)

--
End of file - 4792 bytes

Can anyone spot anything dodgy in there? Just remembered the Hijackthis.de site and ran my log through there. No problems reported there so I'm even more convinced there is some system problem somewhere that I need to fix.

miniyazz · 10 May 2009 at 19:31

When I open Excel 2007, blank spreadsheet, CPU usage ups to 20-30% for 0.5-1s, but I can type straightaway. When I open it with a previously saved document, CPU jumps to 50-60% (on my Core2Duo 2.33GHz laptop) for a similar amount of time. No lag on inputting data in either event though.
One thing you could try (most likely not the problem) is to make sure you've set Excel to use all four cores (in options). Other than that, I'd be tempted to suggest looking at the HDD data again. Try running a HDTune benchmark, or copying files, while loading Excel and see how much that lengthens the time between it appearing and you being able to type, and if it happens with a blank doc or not. Can't help you w.r.t. the hard disk - i'm running an SSD.

MarcLister · 10 May 2009 at 19:34

miniyazz said:
When I open Excel 2007, blank spreadsheet, CPU usage ups to 20-30% for 0.5-1s, but I can type straightaway. When I open it with a previously saved document, CPU jumps to 50-60% (on my Core2Duo 2.33GHz laptop) for a similar amount of time. No lag on inputting data in either event though.
One thing you could try (most likely not the problem) is to make sure you've set Excel to use all four cores (in options). Other than that, I'd be tempted to suggest looking at the HDD data again. Try running a HDTune benchmark, or copying files, while loading Excel and see how much that lengthens the time between it appearing and you being able to type, and if it happens with a blank doc or not. Can't help you w.r.t. the hard disk - i'm running an SSD.

Multi-threaded was enabled. Set to use all 4 cores.

I'll look for and download HDTune now.

What should I expect from it?

OK its running. Just scanned the C: drive and I get minimum transfer rate of 4MB/sec. It was about 53MB/sec until 85% of the test then it dropped to 4MB/sec as the new lowest. :confused:

Maximum is 109.9MB/sec with the average being 85.1MB/sec. Access time is 17.3ms, burst 132.7MB/sec and CPU usage of 3.3%.

On the info tab it says: "Supported: UDMA Mode 6 (Ultra ATA/133)" yet I also get "Active: UDMA Mode 5 (Ultra ATA/100)". So I guess I need to go into the BIOS and change some HDD settings there.

The health status is OK. Currently doing an error scan, just to be sure. When it finishes I'll reboot, check the BIOS and see if I can get my HDD to UDMA Mode 6.

miniyazz · 10 May 2009 at 19:51

Basically what you want to be doing is stressing the hard drive. There may be a better application out there to do it than HD Tune, I've never really thought about it before.
Anyway, I think either scanning the disk for bad sectors or benchmarking it should do the trick. So set that going, then load up Excel and try typing, and if there's a significantly increased time between it loading and you being able to type, that points towards a HDD problem.

Edit: an IDE HDD? If so, that again points to HDD - means it's older, and older means slower

MarcLister · 10 May 2009 at 19:54

Nah. SATA drives. Not sure what its set to in the BIOS mind. That could be the problem I reckon. Just checking out the D: drive so I've got a full set of numbers and statistics then I will check the BIOS out.

Right, booted into BIOS. HDDs were set to IDE. Changed that to AHCI. Excel problem still occurs.

MarcLister · 10 May 2009 at 22:51

Right copied a spreadsheet to a USB pen drive and the same problem so whatever the issue is, it isn't with the source HDD the spreadsheet was originally. Its either something to do with Office 2007 or the HDD my C: drive is on.

miniyazz · 10 May 2009 at 23:00

Hmm and yet it works fine when loading the default blank spreadsheet?
Only other thing I can think of is if your diabetes file is huge, but I just tried loading me an 11mb excel file (older file format though) from an external hdd, no problems. what does happen if you save as .xls instead of .xlsx? It shouldn't work, but if it does, you could just use that format, assuming you don't need 2007-specific features.

MarcLister · 10 May 2009 at 23:10

Yep. Default blank spreadsheet works immediately. Same for Word. Its something about loading a file up that is causing the issue here.

The diabetes file is 69.7Kb!! :eek:

So that ain't the issue.

I've also wondered about the .xls format instead of the newer .xlsx format. I also agree it shouldn't be the problem but I will try that. Pretty annoyed with this now as all I seem to be able to do is count things out as the cause but still get no nearer to finding the actual problem.

Might try HDTach later and see what that says but surely if the HDD that I have C: on had issues I'd see it in other apps and not just Office? Then seeing as loading Excel on its own is OK the HDD surely can't be the issue?

I've just remembered that recently trying to save files to my D: drive (another physical disk, different to the C: drive disk) causes Opera to lock up for a bit when I press 'Save' on the download file dialog. I wonder if that's linked or just another problem.

I also disconnected my iPod and turned my USB-connected external HDD and tried the spreadsheet again and still nothing so I can safely discount the external hard disks as causing some issue.

miniyazz · 10 May 2009 at 23:30

OK I've just noticed something I've been missing out on. My Windows Update that I've been postponing all day just popped up again and reminded me to restart so Office 2007 SP2 can take effect.. so it may be an SP2 glitch, I've been comparing with my SP1.

Will reboot in a few mins to test.

MarcLister · 10 May 2009 at 23:52

Ah.

It isn't the service pack. I've had this since SP1.

One thing I haven't tested yet is the network connection. Later I might unplug my PC from the router so its got no Internet connection at all and see if that helps. One more thing to eliminate I suppose.

I also tried tweaking some NOD32 settings like stopping the real-time protection from scanning a file on open. Also unticked scanning network drives in case NOD32 was getting its knickers in a twist but still nothing. I've had this on a previous Vista install with NOD32 v3, this Vista install with Avast and this Vista install with NOD32 v4 so I don't think the AV is an issue here. Might also try turning NOD32 off permanently then restarting and booting into Vista without an AV to see if that does anything.

miniyazz · 10 May 2009 at 23:56

Well first off the reboot I did actually get a lag

It's gone now though, even with different files..
Strange.

MarcLister · 11 May 2009 at 01:47

I just saved a spreadsheet to the 97-03 format and that still didn't work. I'm wondering if I've somehow turned a service off that Office 2007 needs to load stuff quickly? :confused:

MarcLister · 11 May 2009 at 20:10

Bump.

Was thinking I could remove Office 2007 then reinstall and see if that works. Then add SP1 and see if there's any change. Then SP2 and see how that goes.

Any other ideas what could be the issue here?

miniyazz · 12 May 2009 at 09:10

I'm out of ideas, sorry!

RobH · 12 May 2009 at 15:12

This is a long shot but pull out a stick of RAM and see if it makes any difference. I have been suffering from a simlar problem for a year. The CPU load you are seeing is probably all one a single core which is being used by the application. In my case random apps used up all of the CPU and would take ages to launch, I came to the conclusion that my system doesn't like 4GB of RAM or all 4 slots being filled so I removed a random stick and it worked fine. I had the problem on both Vista x64 and Windows 7 x64 even after reinstalls so it's a hardware problem.

MarcLister · 12 May 2009 at 15:19

Hi RobH. I could do that but I've not had this problem always. Office was fine and then it seems to slow down. Surely if it was a RAM problem it would have been like this from the off?

I've only got two RAM slots used at the moment so that isn't the problem. Not sure its a 4Gb problem as, like I said, it starts off OK then slows down. I'm starting to wonder if its a problem with an Office related Windows Update patch I've installed?

Thanks for giving me some ideas though. It is much appreciated.

I just opened a spreadsheet whilst looking at the Performance tab of the Task Manager and there is a spike in CPU usage on all 4 cores. Not all the same amount but all 4 cores definitely spike in CPU usage. Still can't see why Excel/Word opening on their own is OK but loading a document causes problems.

HangTime · 12 May 2009 at 20:05

I'd definitely try a reinstall of Office.

Not using any additional stuff that's interfacing with Office are you e.g. Sharepoint, Office Live etc?

The CPU spike thing is normal I think, just strange that you can't type. Are you using any kind of fancy keyboard driver or anything? Tried launching the application with belownormal priority? Does the same thing happen if you load Excel and then load the file afterwards?

MarcLister · 12 May 2009 at 20:44

HangTime said:
I'd definitely try a reinstall of Office.

Yeah I'm heading that way. It'll either fix it or if not show me that its something on the PC causing the issue. I've counted 34 Office 2007 updates I've installed through Windows Updates. I reckon one of them is to blame.

HangTime said:
Not using any additional stuff that's interfacing with Office are you e.g. Sharepoint, Office Live etc?

Nope. Don't use, need or want any of that stuff. I do a customised install of Office so that I only install what I need/want from Office 2007. Weirdly some of the 34 updates I mentioned above are for Office 2007 programs that are included in Office 2007 Ultimate but I've not got them installed. Things like Outlook, InfoPath and OneNote. Never understood why I've had to install those just because Windows Update sees I've got Office 2007 Ultimate so it gives me those updates to install even though those programs aren't actually installed. Reckon I could just remove the InfoPath, Outlook and OneNote updates and see if that helps?

HangTime said:
The CPU spike thing is normal I think, just strange that you can't type. Are you using any kind of fancy keyboard driver or anything? Tried launching the application with belownormal priority? Does the same thing happen if you load Excel and then load the file afterwards?

Nope. Its a normal Microsoft USB keyboard plugged straight into a USB port on the back of my PC. Recently I've noticed that the toolbar in Excel or Word is grey for a few seconds, as the CPU usage is spiking, then as the spike goes the toolbar goes from its greyed out state to full colour so I don't know what that means.

HangTime said:
Tried launching the application with belownormal priority?

Excel itself? No.

HangTime said:
Does the same thing happen if you load Excel and then load the file afterwards?

Yes. However I open a spreadsheet I get this.

HangTime · 13 May 2009 at 22:22

I tried this at work today (ironically I put SP2 on yesterday) and got similar results.... if I open a spreadsheet and start typing straight away, the text doesn't appear until I click to change focus to a different cell.

That said, my work PC is obviously a lot slower (single core). It's also got Office 2003 installed (in addition to 2007) so it wouldn't surprise me if there were any issues anyway.

MarcLister · 13 May 2009 at 22:49

Gah. Thought you had an answer for me there.

I removed Office 2007 today then reinstalled it. Office 2007 vanilla was the same as before. SP1 didn't do anything and neither did SP2. I thought I might have solved it when I realised I used CutePDF but alas removing that did nothing. I think I mentioned earlier that with Opera and Firefox, when I want to download a file, both browsers seem to freeze when I click on the 'Save' button so perhaps something is going on with accessing/reading a hard disk. I did have some Intel RAID app that I disabled because I didn't like the look of it.

Perhaps I ought to download it again from the Asus P5Q-E site and actually let it run and see if that does anything.

If that doesn't solve the issue then I give up. Short of reinstalling Vista, which I don't want to do, I can't see how I can work this out.

Thanks to all who've offered some ideas.