Microsoft Office Running Slow On Mac

To see presence in Outlook (and other Office apps), Skype for Business must be installed, even if you're running Teams in Teams Only mode. Microsoft is aware of this problem and is working on a fix. Microsoft is aware of this problem and is working on a fix. Why is Office 2016 so goddamned slow? And how to speed it up? So, did an experiment today, because I'm finding more and more that I need to send documents and such to colleagues, sometimes from my home computer, sometimes my iPad, and while I like Pages and Numbers just fine, it gets a little tedious to always convert them into Word and Excel.

-->

Note

Office 365 ProPlus is being renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise. For more information about this change, read this blog post.

Symptoms

When you try to open a file from a network location in one of the Microsoft Office programs such as PowerPoint 2003 , Excel 2003, Publisher 2003 or a later version of them, the Office program may run very slowly or may appear to stop responding (hang).

Cause

This behavior may occur if the connection to the network location is lost during the time that your Office program is opening the file.

Microsoft Office Mac

Workaround

Important

This section, method, or task contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, see How to back up and restore the registry in Windows.

To work around this behavior, add the EnableShellDataCaching value to the Microsoft Windows registry. To do this, follow these steps:

  1. Close your Office programs.

  2. Click Start, and then click Run.

  3. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

  4. Locate, and then click to select one of the following registry keys accordingly:

    • Office 365, Office 2019 and Office 2016:

      HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice16.0CommonOpen Find

    • Office 2013:

      HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice15.0CommonOpen Find

    • Office 2010:

      HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice14.0CommonOpen Find

    • Office 2007:

      HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0CommonOpen Find

    • Office 2003:

      HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftOffice11.0CommonOpen Find

  5. After you select the key that is specified in step 4, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.

  6. Type EnableShellDataCaching, and then press ENTER.

  7. Right-click EnableShellDataCaching, and then click Modify.

  8. In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.

    Note

    Any non-zero number in the Value data box will turn on caching. A zero number or blank (default) will turn off caching.

  9. On the File menu, click Exit to quit Registry Editor.

Did this fix the problem?

Check whether the problem is fixed. If the problem is fixed, you are finished with this section. If the problem is not fixed, you can contact support.

More information

This situation may occur after you click Open in the Open dialog box (on the File menu, click Open) to open a file from a network location (for example, a network server). During the process of opening the file, you lose your network connection or the network location that contains the file that you are trying to open goes down. During the process of opening the file, your Office program tries to add the file name and the path information of the file that you are trying to open to the Windows recent file list. Because the network location (path) does not now exist, the Office program may run slowly and may appear to stop responding (hang).

Note

This situation may also occur if your connection to your network is slow because your Office program has to make multiple queries to the network to obtain the correct file information.

Updated 8:28 AM EST Dec 15, 2019

Question: I upgraded to Catalina on my Mac and now Microsoft Office won’t work; what can I do?

Answer: One of the side effects of tech companies taking their platforms to new levels is that, often times, older software programs will no longer work.

Run microsoft office on mac

The most recent version of Apple’s MacOS — known as Catalina — is having a major impact on those who upgraded without understanding that their older 32-bit programs would no longer run.

Microsoft Office Running Slow On Mac Computer

If your version of Microsoft Office is older than Office 2016 v15.35, you’ll have to choose from a variety of costly or time consuming and complicated options.

If you have Office 2016, you should be able to upgrade to the 64-bit version through Microsoft’s standard upgrade process if for some reason it hasn’t already been updated.

Option 1: Purchase new software

You can purchase the Office Home & Student 2019 bundle from Microsoft for $149.99 or the Office Home & Business bundle for $249.99. The primary difference in the two packages is the business version includes Outlook.

Option 2: Start renting Microsoft Office

Microsoft is trying to get users to convert from a single purchase package that will eventually expire to their subscription 'SaaS' (Software as a Service) platform known as Office 365.

This means you either pay monthly ($6.99 for Home & Student) or annually ($69.99 for Home & Student or $99 for Business) from now on.

Ms Office Running Slow

Option 3: Switch to Google’s offerings

If your needs for productivity software are very basic, you may find the free options available from Google through a Google Drive account to be acceptable.

It includes Docs, Sheets and Slides which are Google’s version of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, although nowhere near as powerful. Though it’s a web-based tool, there are options for editing your documents when you are offline.

Option 4: Revert back to Mojave

There is no simple way to go back to the previous version (Mojave), so this option is very time consuming and complicated, as you’ll have to wipe your hard drive and reinstall everything. Depending upon which version of the MacOS your computer shipped with, you may have to use an external hard drive to complete the reversion.

How to check for 32-bit programs

For those who are considering an upgrade to Catalina, a good first step is to see what 32-bit programs you are currently running to determine if they are important to you or not.

Microsoft Office Running Slow On Mac Windows 10

To do this, click on the Apple icon in the upper left corner, then on 'About This Mac' and then on 'System Report.' When the report opens up, scroll down to the 'Software' section and click on 'Applications.'

Microsoft Office Running Slow On Mac

An alphabetical list of applications will appear with various details about each one. If you scroll to the far right, you should see a column that says '64-Bit' and the words 'Yes' or 'No' for each application. To make it easier to see the Application Name and whether it’s 64-bit or not, drag the 64-bit header from the far right to the far left so it’s right next to the 'Application Name' column.

Go through the list looking for your critical programs to make sure they are 64-bit or to see if a 64-bit version is available from the creator of the program before upgrading to Catalina.

Ken Colburn is the founder and CEO of Data Doctors Computer Services. Ask any tech question at: facebook.com/DataDoctors.

Updated 8:28 AM EST Dec 15, 2019