Taking a long time to open Microsoft Applications

[SJ98]

Hello,

 

As the title suggests, we're having issues opening Microsoft applications like Word, PowerPoint, Excel etc.

We're slowly upgrading from W10 to W11, and on W11, it's taking a crazy amount of time to load any of the above applications, whether you open them on their own, or by opening a file.

We have our appdata going to the user's drive typically, which would follow them if they changed PC etc, but I have tested directing appdata to the C drive and this doesn't seem to change the speed.

 

When looking on ProcMon, it's constantly doing QueryFileInternalInformationFile, QueryBasicInformationFile, QueryStandardInformationFile,ReadFile, WriteFile, CloseFile, CreateFile to appdata\local\temp.

Other times, its doing it for C drive\windows\csc\v2.0.6\namespace (some with our file server name after 'namespace', some not)

 

Is there any reason why these apps would take so long to load up? Some are taking an hour plus to load up a simple excel document.

Edited March 21, 2025 by SJ98

[SJ98]

After doing some testing, it is also doing this on Office 21, so I don't think is matters which one it uses.

 

I think it is struggling to get passed C:\Windows\CSC\V2.0.6\namespace to be able to open any of the MS apps.

 

Not sure if anyone has a better insight?

 

[SJ98]

This could be more related to group policy - but I am not entirely sure what would be locking it down or denying it to slow it down.

I moved the test staff account into a domain admin and the apps loaded instantly.

 

I am just not sure what it stopping it on our standard staff group policy?

[MatthewL]

Is it O365 version of office?  I've got the same issue on my home PC more so with Outlook.

[SJ98]

It's both Office 21 and O365.

[MatthewL]

Mines been bad this week but generally not too bad, I know my machine needs an upgrade but was nearly unuseable yesterday.  Got nothing on my home PC that would be causing an issue so must be specific to the application.

[PotNoodleTech]

Yes ive seen this issue on Win 10 and Office 2019 apps will sometimes randomly pause sometimes when your opening or changing a page setting sometimes when printing, never gotten to the bottom of it no rhyme no reason that we can find.

 

It doesnt seem to be doing it on my Win 11 / Office 2021 image.  Thank the lord.

[SJ98]

Yeah it's been wrecking my head for some time now and no-one seems to know why it does it!

I am just going through our policies for staff to see if I can find anything particular.

[BKGarry]

Something in the back of my head is tingling here.

 

Back in the day, before we moved predominantly to Google Classroom and only had a 300mbps internet connection, I had to disable the template screen loading on opening Office programs and go straight to the new document, as opening the templates when an Office application opened was about 0.5MB download, which is fine, until you have 5 year groups worth of laptops all opening word at a similar time.

Not saying it is this, but it may be worth seeing if that does anything.

[SJ98]

This is an interesting point that I didn't really delve into - thank you for your insight BKGarry

 

Is there a GPO for this?

[BKGarry]

There is but I am not 100% where, and away from my PC at the moment will check when I get back to it

[SJ98]

Brilliant, thank you for this.

I will await your response!

[BKGarry]

Sorry for the delay @SJ98

 

 

[SJ98]

Thanks for this @BKGarry

Sadly, I don't think its the main problem. I do think its absolutely something that we need on so that the templates do continue generating - so I do appreciate this!

 

It still likes hanging at the C:\Windows\CSC\V2.0.6\Namespace section when looking at it from Process Monitor. Having it not generating the custom template files is a good step forward though.