Slow File Menu on Menu Bar

[John S.]

In Excel 2003 (installed more than 3 years on my machine), the File Menu has
suddenly become extremely slow to open - 10 to 20 seconds - while all the
other Menu Bar menus are quite snappy. In other Office apps the File Menu is
also snappy.

Only changes to my system in the last few days have been C drive defrag.

Editing the File Menu, Office Repair and System Restore to a point before
the Menu problem have had no effect, as well as disconnecting network drives.

Any ideas where I might insert a fix for this?

 

[Ron de Bruin]

Try this John

Maybe you have a corrupt or bloated xlb file *normal* size is < 30 kb.
The .xlb file has all Toolbar customization in it.

1) Close Excel
2) Do a search for .xlb in Windows (Use: search hidden files and folders)
3) Rename or delete the .xlb file or files (In 2002 the name = Excel10.xlb)
4) Start Excel

Deleting the file or renaming will do no harm to your system
Excel will create a new file for you. (You lost your customization remember that)
If you make your own toolbars or add buttons to the others
this file is important (backup it so you can restore it)

 

[John S.]

Ron, got rid of .xlb (only 10k) and restarted. Same old thing.

Then followed a series of steps that led me to deleting a bunch of commands
from the menu that I never use (save as web page, etc) and reducing the
recent files from 9 to 4, and voila, FAST FILE.

Thanx for pushing me over the edge - it made me look a little further.