Excel opens up extremely slowly after installing a virtual add-in. Deleting Excel14.xlb resolves issue. Need more information about Excel14.xlb to find a permanent fix rather than a quick fix.

Background: Analysis for Office by SAP Business Objects was recently deployed to several hundred users in my environment as a virtual app using Microsoft App-V. The add-in does not get installed directly into Excel - it must be loaded using a Business Objects loader, which opens up an instance of Excel with the add-in.

After deployment of the software, many of the users suddenly started reporting that Excel takes 3-5 minutes to load any documents, even without the add-in, and takes the same amount of time to load a blank Excel document. SAP support suggests deleting Excel14.xlb as a fix for this issue, and I've verified that this works.

I currently am unable to replicate the issue at all, because the installation of the virtual add-in does not create or modify the Excel14.xlb file. I do notice that it creates its own XLB file in its AppV cache, but no action is needed with that one to resolve the issue. This issue only is affecting users that have installed this update. 

I'm currently trying to find a more elegant and permanent fix for this issue, but am running into a lot of dead ends. Can anybody advise on why deleting Excel14.xlb seems to resolve an issue with a program that doesn't seem to meaningfully interact with it?

Thank you!

February 5th, 2015 9:29am

Hi,

As far as I know, the XLB file is a settings file format created by Microsoft Excel. XLB files contain custom settings for the toolbars (or command bars). These settings can be edited or customized by selecting toolbar from the view options. XLB files contain information such as toolbars which are visible, their positions, and their functions. XLB files allow for the transfer of customization information among computers and users.

As you said, >>The add-in does not get installed directly into Excel - it must be loaded using a Business Objects loader, which opens up an instance of Excel with the add-in.<< The information of the add-in may be stored in the XLB file. When we run Excel, it'll load the settings of XLB first(Loading the adding when starting Excel) . This may be the factor that caused the Excel slow performance issue. After we delete the existing XLB file, Excel will re-create a blank one in the next startup time. (It'll lost all the custom settings). Thus, Excel will go back to default settings and work normally.

Hope it can be helpful to you.

Regards,

George Zhao
TechNet Community Support

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 6th, 2015 2:20am

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics