Excel 2016 is slow to start

Dear @Rose Emma,

I hope you’re having a good day. 

Thank you for the detailed description. The timeline you provided is particularly helpful. Since the issue started immediately after the printer replacement, I think it's reasonable to investigate the printer subsystem first before looking elsewhere.

Based on Microsoft's documented behavior and similar cases, Excel does reference printer information during startup. Excel relies on printer settings for page layout, printable areas, paper sizes, and print-related calculations, so issues with printer drivers or printer connectivity can cause Excel to appear hung or take a long time to become responsive.

Given your symptoms, a printer-related timeout is one of the more likely explanations, even though the current default printer is set to Microsoft Print to PDF. The original printer replacement may have left behind driver components, printer ports, or references that Excel is still attempting to access during startup.

To help narrow this down, I would recommend the following checks:

1. Test Excel in Safe Mode

Run: excel /safe

If Excel starts normally in Safe Mode, that may indicate a startup component, template, or Office-related customization contributing to the delay.

If the 2-minute delay still occurs, it makes add-ins and startup customizations less likely to be the root cause.

2. Test with a Different Default Printer

Although Microsoft Print to PDF is already configured as the default printer, I would still be interested in testing with:

• Microsoft XPS Document Writer
• A generic local printer driver (if available)

After changing the default printer, restart Excel and compare the startup time. Excel is known to query default printer information during startup, and printer-driver-related issues have been observed to affect launch performance.

3. Review Installed Printers and Printer Drivers

Please check whether:

• The old printer still appears in Devices and Printers.
• Old printer ports still exist.
• Any printers show an offline or unavailable status.
• Multiple versions of the printer driver are installed.

Even if the default printer has been changed, Excel may still be affected by issues within the printing subsystem.

4. Check XLSTART and Alternate Startup Locations

Excel also checks startup folders when it launches. Files located in these folders can increase startup time.

Please verify whether either of the following contains files: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office16\XLSTARTor %AppData%\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART

5. Observe Whether the Delay Is Consistently Close to Two Minutes

The fact that the delay is approximately two minutes and then Excel suddenly becomes usable is interesting.

That pattern often resembles a timeout occurring while Excel waits for a response from an external component such as a printer driver, a printer port or a network resource referenced by the printer configuration rather than a normal performance issue.

I hope this information helps point you in the right direction. If you run into any issues while trying the steps, or if something still doesn’t feel quite right, please don’t hesitate to reach out again. I’ll do my best to support you however I can.   

Looking forward to hearing back from you with any updates or additional details.  

Warm regards,  

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