Excel workbooks crashing/locking up after Windows 10 and Office 365 updates

[phrankndonna]

Hello,

Since our IT pushed out the latest updates, and with IT's additional suggestion of going to Windows Update and 'checking online for updates from Microsoft Update (which downloaded and installed additional 'cumulative' updates for Windows 10 Version 21H2), our department's Excel workbooks have either a) been crashing where they need to be repaired before opening again, and/or b) been locking up so hard that it requires a hard reboot (killing the app via Task Manager or doing a soft restart doesn't even work). These are long-used, mature workbooks, most with macros. Nothing has changed with the workbooks. This happens daily now. And it is not isolated to one person's laptop, which is why I'm thinking the issue is connected with Windows and/or Office 365 updates. Below are the Windows, Office 365 (Excel), and hardware specs. Has anyone else encountered these issues and hopefully can tell me what might be going on, please?

Windows 10 Version 21H2 (OS build 19044.1889 with Windows Feature Experience Pack 120.2212.4180.0)
Office 365 Excel Version 2205 (Build 15225.20394, Monthly Enterprise Channel), 64-bit
Hardware specs: varies, but most are Intel Core i5-835U CPU @ 1.70GHz, 16GB RAM. My personal laptop is an Intel Core i9-10885H CPU @ 2.40GHz with 32gb RAM. All are 64-bit OS


Thank you!

Frank

[dosydos]

anything from this link help?

https://www.brightcarbon.com/blog/ch...microsoft-365/

[phrankndonna]

Hello. Thank you very much for the information! Unfortunately, it doesn't appear that it applies to us yet. I checked the properties of our workbooks, and we don't yet have that Security blurb and checkbox below the Attributes, even though we do have the Build 2205, as mentioned in the article, and our Version 15225 is after the 15130 noted in the article. Regardless, it seems the article is saying this security update is targeted at external workbooks being sent, whereas our issues are with our internally created and shared workbooks on our company's secure network. I really appreciate the information, though, as I'll keep an eye out for this now.

As an aside, my Excel just locked up again right before writing this response. I was able to close it this time with the Ctrl+Alt+Del, but I'm going to reboot after sending this, because I know if I don't, I'll continue to have issues. Thank you!

Frank

[phrankndonna]

Hello. I have a follow-up question. Our workbooks have extensive formulas and macros, as well as conditional formatting. Is it possible that Excel simply cannot keep up with what it is being asked to do? I haven't found any limitation documentation, so I don't know. Something is suddenly going on, though. Thanks.

[Jameswalter]

In Excel, head to File > Options.
From the left pane, click Advanced.
From the Display section, check Disable hardware graphics acceleration.
Click OK and restart Excel.

Also, you can Repair Microsoft Office
If updating the app and checking its settings didn?t fix Excel, it?s time to repair Microsoft Office.


Press Win + I to bring up Windows Settings.
Select Apps.
From the apps list, select Microsoft Office and click Modify.
Select Quick Repair > Repair.
Click Repair.


Greetings,
James

[phrankndonna]

Hi James. Thank you for the suggestions. I'll try the first one regarding the hardware graphics acceleration. Regarding the Office repair, i'm not able to do that, as I don't have admin privileges where I work. However, just yesterday I submitted an IT ticket and had my Office 365 completely uninstalled and reinstalled, and then I did the update check to get anything else from the web that was needed and could be updated. However, that did not seem to help. I don't know about the hardware graphics acceleration disabling yet, though.

All that said, there is one aspect of our workbooks that I neglected to mention. About 2 years ago, we switched from saving our workbooks as .xlsm (macro-enabled workbooks) to .xlsb (Binary). At the time and up until just recently, we got better performance from our workbooks and macros, and the file size was cut almost in half. On a whim yesterday, I decided to switch one of our workbooks back to .xlsm to see how it performed, and I was surprised to find it performing smoothly again.
So I tried it with another workbook and got the same result. There may be other network factors going on, but it definitely appears to have something to do with the .xlsb file type. And this all definitely started right after our IT pushed out the latest Windows and Office 365 updates. Have you or anyone heard of issues with the .xlsb and Windows 10 version 21H2 and Office 365 version 2205 and above (I now have version 2206)?

Thanks!

[phrankndonna]

Hi again. One correction. I did already have the hardware graphics acceleration disabled, i.e., the box in the Options under Advanced>Display is already checked. I was thinking I needed to uncheck it. But it was already checked, and I was having the issues noted above. So unfortunately, that doesn't fix things for this issue.