Share via

Slow response/typing lag/high CPU load when using Office 365 Pro Word and Excel

  • Article

Question

Thursday, July 6, 2017 9:46 AM

Hello, need help on something which is driving me crazy on Office 365 Word and Excel.

Since one of the latest updates of Office 365. This occurs on my Elitebook 8470p work laptop with Win 7 installed.

Issue:

Slow response when typing in Word or within an Excel cell. High CPU utilisation up to 30%

Moving from one Excel cell to another have a lag and is not immediate

Typing and holding any key, instead of causing a fast repetition of the character as usual, causes a lag or causes a few characters to be quickly shown and then a lag.

I have been uninstalling Office 365 and reinstalling. At first it was solved, then it reappeared probably after the Office 365 update was automatically installed.

We have Onedrive and Sharepoint and we also have Microsoft Teams

I have been also repairing Office to no avail.

If performing compatibility checking for Word and Excel, result is compatibility for Win XP SP 2 and starting in this mode resolves the problem but not acceptable as other issues materialise e.g. prompt to start Word/Excel and error when clicking on Excel file to open.

If starting in safe model (CTRL+double click), issue disappear. I have tried disabling add ons but seems none of the installed is the culprit. But something not activated in safe mode must be the culprit.

Can you please help?

Thanks

Marco

All replies (10)

Friday, July 7, 2017 6:03 AM

Hi Marco,

>> If starting in safe model (CTRL+double click), issue disappear. I have tried disabling add ons but seems none of the installed is the culprit. But something not activated in safe mode must be the culprit.

In most cases, we use safe mode to help identify an add-in or extension that may be causing a problem on startup. By "have tried disabling add ons", do you mean you have tried disabling all types of Add-ins but the issue still persists?

Based on my research, apart from add-ins, there are more restrictions apply when we start an Office application in safe mode, see the following article for more details:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Open-Office-apps-in-safe-mode-on-a-Windows-PC-dedf944a-5f4b-4afb-a453-528af4f7ac72

In your scenario, please check if you have used any customized Toolbar or command bar which might be related to the problem.

Besides, it is also suggested to perform a clean boot in Windows, then have a try and see if issue persists. This helps eliminate whether the issue was caused by any software conflicts:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929135

Best regards,
Yuki Sun

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they helped.

If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].

Monday, July 10, 2017 8:55 AM

Thanks Yuki. I will check if there are customized toolbar. Anyway, a colleague of mine with a more recent PC had the same issue and believe it may be the last Office 365 update conflicting with some setting we have on company PC. Thanks Brgds Marco

Tuesday, July 11, 2017 2:01 AM

Hi Marco,

How'w everything going with this issue? 

As per your concern about the recent update, could you please collect the detailed build number of your Office then we can do further research on this?

Best regards,
Yuki Sun

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they helped.

If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].

Wednesday, July 12, 2017 3:29 PM

Our office is seeing similar issues using Microsoft Word 2016 / Office 365 instance on Windows 10.

Systems have 8GB of RAM and an i5, no slowness issues with Office suite until patches were installed yesterday and this morning. Slowness occurs on files saved on network share, as well as those saved locally.

Creation of new documents appears to be fine, no extensive delays while typing. When editing previously created documents, slowness can be anywhere from half a second to five seconds before text will appear.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017 3:59 PM

Hello Yuki,

issue still persists and is quite annoying. I can work but clearly is less efficient, especially with Excel things are slower.

Build number is Office 365 ProPlus Version 1706 (Build 8229.2073 Click-to-run)

I am almost sure that it is related to the latest update, as did a full reinstall of Office 365 and at first it was not there, then when it updated, issue materialised.

I have noticed that in Excel, I got the following message in a Visual Basic pop up window:

"code execution has been interrupted"

But the strange thing is this occurs even with a blank file or a file where there is no macro, in fact the debug button is greyed out. Wonder if this is related and trying to find ways to disable VB. I tried disabling macro from regedit (as it is greyed out likely group policy admin setting). But no change (even though I have not rebooted and wonder if you need when you change the regedit key).

Tried different things and searching on Google but not finding anything useful.

We have Onedrive and Sharepoint and also MS Teams.

The impression is that indeed there is some code running in background taking up resources (both Excel and Word but not Powerpoint for instance). As you move the cursor from one cell to another in Excel, it takes time (half a sec? 1 sec?) and CPU goes 30%. What is it doing? There is nothing to calculate as this occurs even on blank files. Seems like a macro engine doing some sort of loop. Same however when you type in a cell and keep key pressed, instead of characters being typed in repetition mode, it clearly lags every 3/4 characters being typed. Same with Word. And the machine is not old (relatively). It is a Core i5 with Win 7, 8Gb memory, a 460 GB HD with still 240 Gb to go, memory not fully used. And it occurs whether you are connected to the network or not, and tested hence offline, online and on different networks (wifi, different LANs)

Thanks

Brgds

Marco

Wednesday, July 12, 2017 4:00 PM

By the way, checked toolbars and could not find anything specific so far.

Wednesday, July 12, 2017 5:45 PM

Temporary fix I just sent to our IT team:

Spent lunch investigating this issue. After much testing, confirmed issue is indeed with an Office 2016 build update, and not any other recently approved OS / Microsoft updates.

Issue:

  • Office 2016 is set to update automatically
    • Unlike previous versions of office, Office 365 licensed suites update automatically; patches are not approved through WSUS.
  • Issue is with Version 1706, Build 8299.2073, most recent version
    • Downgrading back to the June 13<sup>th</sup> release (Version 1705, build 8201.2102) resolves the issue
    • However, downgrading will remove several updates and features

Options:

  • We can configure a GPO to disable updates
    • However, not all staff are experiencing this issue, though I was able to replicate in my Windows 10 VM
  • We can downgrade users back to the June 13<sup>th</sup> release
    • Open elevated command prompt
    • Enter in **cd %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun\**and hit enter
    • Enter in **OfficeC2RClient.exe /update user updatetoversion=16.0.8201.2102 **and hit enter
      • Once entered, a checking for updates dialog box will briefly appear, followed by a downloading office updates box
      • Once this dialog is complete, the Office suite installed has been officially rolled back
  • Other items
    • If we would prefer not to disable automatic Office updates for all users, we can definitely do “one offs” only for staff experiencing this issue
      • Can disable updates by launching Word, clicking on Account on the left-hand side, clicking on Office Updates on the right, and choosing Disable Updates
      • However, if we do this, we need to keep track of users / hosts, and ensure this setting is re-enabled once a new build is release

Thursday, July 13, 2017 8:56 AM

Hi seaman2050,

Thanks for your feedback. 

After a long-time research, currently I cannot confirm weather the issue is caused by this update as there's no official documentation stating this. I have tried to submit this via our internal way and will post back if there is any update.

For now, you may refer to the temporary resolution share by llJamesonll and check if the issue could be worked around. 

By the way, could you please have a check at Event Viewer when the problem occurs and see if anything useful would be recorded out there?

Best regards,
Yuki Sun

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they helped.

If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].

Thursday, July 13, 2017 9:42 PM

Hello and thanks for your help so far Yuki and llJamesonll.

I would not roll back to previous Office 365 and disable updates. I am OK to live with the issue at this stage.

Actually today after having installed the Windows update KB4025337, the good news is that Excel behaves normally, no lag, key repetition is quick, and CPU load negligible. That's already very good as Excel was a hassle as I am a heavy user. Tested also Word and in Word, issue is still there although it seems to me it has, very slightly, improved. Lag is somehow reduced, when pressing key and holding, more characters are typed quickly but you can notice there is still a lag every 8-10 keystrokes. CPU load is also 20% while before seemed to be in the 30s.

llJamesonll, how did you reproduce the issue? And what machines where issue was reproduced have in common? You reproduced it in Win 10 while I have it in Win 7. I also had installed the freeware Keyscrambler but disabling it did not cause any change. The change was with the latest update, although I see there was no specific fix for such an issue, rather it was a security update.

Thanks

Marco

Friday, July 14, 2017 2:10 AM

Hi Marco,

Glad to see that there is some improvement after installing the latest Windows update. As performance issues can be related to various factors, both hardware and software, it might be quite difficult to troubleshoot. Any updates on this issue, please feel free to discuss here.

Best regards,
Yuki Sun

Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they helped.

If you have feedback for TechNet Subscriber Support, contact [email protected].