Excel 2003 Slowness on Windows Servers Since June 15, 2011
Thanks to Microsoft, we may have to deal with some Excel 2003 issues in the future. The issue began when Microsoft released a patch for Office 2003 (Excel) on June 15, 2011. When running Excel 2003 on PC (XP or Win 7) and opening Excel files on a Windows Server 2003 environment, there is a huge delay when the file is 500KB and greater. It can take up to 3 minutes or longer to complete (or just freeze up completely). As a network services engineer, it is not uncommon to run into issues like this. Below is one solution I have found to get rid of the delay.
Solution:
- Log on to the client PC, launch Add/Remove Programs and remove the following Microsoft Office 2003 Updates (Post SP3 Updates).
- Remove the Office 2003 KB2541025 Update first, then close out of Add/Remove Programs
- Launch Add/Remove Programs and you will see the Office 2003 KB250278 Update appear, remove this update.
Once the 2 updates are removed in the order above, you can launch Excel 2003 and the delay will be gone. It is a good idea to block these patches going forward.
