Recently we have been experiencing problems with excel 2003, more specifically files are very slow to open on network drives on some machines. Opening the same file from a local copy works fine. It also loads perfectly on excel 2007 and 2010. Upon examination it became apparent that the computers exhibiting this slow loading behaviour all had the “office file validator” installed. Armed with this information I came across this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2570623 where microsoft basically tell you to work around the issue or install office 2007 or 2010.
So the only options are:
1. Copy the file locally and open it.
2. Remove the office validator add-in (and accept the increased risk)
3. Disable the office validator for excel files
4. Upgrade to office 2007 or 2010
The following reg entry disables the file validation check for excel and works around the issue.
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Security\FileValidation]
“EnableOnLoad”=dword:00000000
Just another IT blog