I have 3 users experiencing problems with Excel 2010.  On the first use of the day, when they try to format a range of cells from the right click, format cells context menu, it takes approximately 8-10 seconds for the menu to open.  After the first time of the day, it opens almost immediately.  I have tried opening Excel in safe mode with no change in behavior.  I have also changed the default printer to the XPS document writer to rule out a driver issue.  The issue isn't specific to one OS either.  One is Win XPSP3, one is Win 7 Enterprise x32 and one is Win 7 Enterprise x64.  The problem is there with all machines.  I can create the problem by rebooting the machine and starting Excel again.  I have watched task manager to ensure that there were adequate hardware resources during this time and there is.  CPU is at about 10-15% usage and over 1G of physical RAM available.  All machines have SP1 installed.

• Moved by Max MengMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Friday, January 27, 2012 1:30 AM Moving to a more appropriate forum (From:Office IT Pro General Discussions)

As an update, I've tried in safe mode and with all COM and Excel add-ins disabled and am still encountering this issue.

BBellASFCU wrote:

I have 3 users experiencing problems with Excel 2010.  On the first use of the day, when they try to format a range of cells from the right click, format cells context menu, it takes approximately 8-10 seconds for the menu to open

I had the same experience, although I don't know if it was truly 8-10 seconds.  A long time, anyway.  In my case, the problem persisted:  the delay occurred the first time I accessed the Format menu each time after I started Excel 2010.   Funny, but when I tried it just now (to measure the delay), there is no perceptible delay.  I don't recall making any configuration changes in the meantime.  Don't know what's going on.  But I, too, would appreciate an explanation.

I have the same problem with Excel 2010.  It started within the past couple of months.  If I right click for the context menu, there is several seconds of pause before the format cells sub-menu appears. It's just long enough to start getting really annoyed.  Unlike one of the other users above, the problem does not clear after the first use.

          I have a similar problem with Outlook 2010.  Several points of hesitation.  It hesitates before downloading new mail and will not open an email if it is still downloading new mail.  It no longer stores multiple presses of the delete key; I have to delete, wait a moment until the delete occurs, then delete the next item.   It will let me highlight/select multiple emails and delete them as a group - but this is longer than pushing the delete key (say) twice. 

          I can't identify a specific process hog.  I do see (excessive) disk activity for no apparent reason and no apparent wireless traffic

I'd just like to add that I too am suffering the exact same problem on my machine. CTRL-1 in excel (format cells...) takes an absolute age to open the first time, then after that it is fine.

My version is 14.0.6112.5000 (32-bit).

There is definitely something "different" about my copy of Excel 2010 - I have an xls spreadsheet with macros which, when I use the key combination CTRL-C, returns a dialog box saying "System Error &H80040111 (-2147221231)" which does not occur for another user of Excel 2010.

I also get the exact same error message when attempting to save the file, which again the other user can do with no problems

I have a case open with Microsoft on this at the moment.  We have done a number of things and what seemed to help most was doing a repair of Office.  I'm not saying that this is the fix, but it seemed to have the most impact on improved performance.

BBellASFCU wrote:

I have a case open with Microsoft on this at the moment.  We have done a number of things and what seemed to help most was doing a repair of Office.  I'm not saying that this is the fix, but it seemed to have the most impact on improved performance.

Not to dampen your optimism, but I just did an Office 2010 repair, and it did not improve the misbehavior.

Since the misbehavior is intermittent (for me, at least), I am not surprised that you might have come to the wrong conclusion.  That is, it might have been just coincidence that you did not see the problem after doing the Office repair; perhaps even now.

I did confirm that there is no network traffic during the misbehavior.  I used a network packet tracer to determine that.

I suspect the problem might be in the Registry.  Perhaps the lookup time is short when something is cached in memory due to a prior operation; otherwise, the long lookup is due to a messy Registry.  I'm certainly guilty of not cleaning it up.

But that is a wild guess based on no real knowledge at all.

• Edited by joeu2004 Monday, February 20, 2012 11:37 PM

Hi Joeu,

This is another wild guess - try changing the default printer to Microsoft XPS Document Writer and see if the behaviour changes.

Ed wrote:

This is another wild guess - try changing the default printer to Microsoft XPS Document Writer and see if the behaviour changes.

Good thought, especially since my usual local printer is often not plugged in.  Hard to prove direct cause-and-effect, though, due to the intermittent nature (on my computer).

But perhaps the "intermittent" nature is the result of my plugging in the local printer at times.

When I changed the default printer, the Format menu did come up immediately.  On the other hand, when I changed back to my original default printer, the Format menu also came up immediately.  Of course, I exited and restarted Excel in between.

Nevertheless, I like this theory the best.  I will continue to experiment.  Perhaps my success with the XPS Doc default printer set things up for success when I switched back.

I wrote:

Ed wrote:

This is another wild guess - try changing the default printer to Microsoft XPS Document Writer and see if the behaviour changes.

I like this theory the best.  I will continue to experiment

I have using Excel for a week now with the XPS DocWriter as my default printer.  I still experience some excessive delays when I first right-click and click on Format Cells.

The delay seems to happen less often, and it seems to be shorter. 

But that might be just wishful thinking.  I have not timed the delay, and I did not keep detailed records both before and after setting the XPS DocWriter as my default print.  Perhaps I'm just getting used to it.

Choosing the XPS DocWriter as my default printer works for me (even though it's not a real fix)
Thanks to all

Hi Ed, thank you very much for your "wild guess", in my case definitely this was the problem. It appeared exactly the same time I moved my print server from home so my default printer didn't exist anymore and solved it with setting an existing printer as default ( in my case a PDF printer ). All the best, Zoli

• Edited by Zoli Vajda Saturday, April 20, 2013 7:33 AM

Format dialog box is slow only the first time when opening Excel. If I close Excel and open it the second time, the format dialog box is no longer slow. I have to reboot in order to make it slow.

One thing that makes the initial opening of the format dialog faster is opening the Fonts folder at startup.

Changing the default printer didn't help me.

• Edited by Alex844 Saturday, June 29, 2013 12:08 AM bad format of superscript
• Proposed as answer by Charlies36 Tuesday, July 02, 2013 5:37 PM

I got the same exact problem.  Sometimes it even crashes Excel.

I had a similar issue and after troubleshooting with the steps in this article, I found that one I switched to the XPS viewer this resolved the issue. Seems to be an issue Excel was having with the driver that was installed for my default printer, so I went to the manufacturer's website and downloaded the latest driver, then installed this and reconfigured the printer as my default printer and now Excel opens the same document with no issues. Hope this helps.

Using Excel 2010 here. In my case I was experiencing the slow right-click menu problem. I noticed blank workbooks didn't have this problem, so I started disabling things and it turned out that it was related to sheet protection.

Go to:

Protect Sheet > Allow all users of this worksheet to: > Insert hyperlinks = Unchecked

After un-checking this option the problem went away completely and the format menu opens promptly, as expected.

Strangely, with this option unchecked I am still able to insert hyperlinks on unprotected cells (i mean, where else could you insert a hyperlink but an unprotected cell?), so I am not sure what it's supposed to do.