hate it, hate it, hate it.

How can MS release such a completly useless application for developers and business people?

Please, please change it back. Is there any real alternative spreadsheet that will read and write Ecel format files?

what is the address for the Microsoft Excel Blog. I want to go to the right place to rant.

It’s worth trying uninstalling Google Office COM add-ins (if you use them) and possibly AV software.

I now use XL2007 99% of the time, and whilst there are some performance issues with VBA I do not get anything like the troubles you describe since doing away with Google Desktop. I uninstalled the whole thing, but according to Charles Williams it’s only the Google Office COM addins you need to uninstall (see his comment in the post linked above).

Regarding stability, I have actually found XL2007 to be substantially better than the earlier versions with very big files. One thing I did find is that with some VBA applications using an API written in C, some incorrectly dimensioned arrays caused an instant crash, whereas in previous versions they worked most of the time, but crashed occaisionally without warning (and always at the most inconvenient moment of course). Possibly some of your problems with VBA applications are caused by something similar.

HTH

Run, don’t walk, to the Excel Blog, which is run by the Excel Product Group in Microsoft. They are looking specifically for issues with macro/VBA speed in 2007.

Microsoft Excel Blog

I’ve seen numerous issues with the Macros. Even worse is the speed or lack thereof users experience when working in Excel 2007. Whether in compatibility mode or after converting workbooks to xlsx this is absolutely the WORST performing upgrade I’ve ever dealt with. A true headache maker!

Autosave locking up peoples workbooks for 10 minutes while the app saves recent changes is a disaster. Yes it can be turned off, but that’s stupid. Changing the value of one cell and moving to a different cell in a worksheet we’ve seen it take 1 minute for excel to unlock itself and get out of the frrozen screen that happens just after the change is made. Excel 2007 doesn’t crash so much as it just sucks. The results are repeatable everytime, and everytime it’s problematic. Then we look at the same workbook/sheets in Excel 2002 and it works as it should. To bad nearly all users don’t have access to Excel 2002 any longer.

It really is shocking how little quality assurance went into the development of this supposed upgrade. All the PC’s in the company I work for run XP SP2 with atleast 2 gig RAM, and processing power is definitely not issue. The problem is Microsofts lack of due diligence in the design of this application.

Sure it may look pretty, but its performance is a nightmare.

Seriously Microsoft, you’re better then that, get it together and patch this thing up so it will atleast perform as good as 2002.

Excel 2007 “all show, no go”
TERRIBLE

My main gripe with XL2007 is that Microsoft designed Windows with universal look and feel, to give users quick entry to new products. There were accepted design rules that, you know, you’d put the File menu first, the Help menu last, and try to make your application interface similar to ‘standard’ MS interfaces. Microsoft used to actively enforce this via certification and their exam systems.

It works really well, I have come across many new third party products and been up and using them in no time. One golden rule for software is that users like what they are used to.

Now, MS have abandoned this (bad) and not provided a route back to the previous style interface (awful). If it was open source, someone would at least be able to hack up and ‘preferred version’ for existing users…

I’m praying for the day that the strangle-hold of MS is released and we can get a bit of evolution going.

Perhaps my complaints are due to lack of tech savvy, but I do have some technical competence and experience (4 engineering degrees, including a PhD, former systems manager, former SW product manager). I don’t think my concerns are trivial. For the average user, without extensive expert IT management backup, Vista and Office 2007 are insane propositions. I myself will migrate to Linus/Openoffice within the next year.

I am stunned that Microsoft could put out something this bad. Anyone on my IT staff proposing to migrate to either Vista or Office 2007 would be summarily fired – and they would deserve it.

The Wizard of Boz

I want to use 2007, mainly for the charts, PTs and BI stuff you can pull through from SQL Server. I even ordered John’s Bible to ease the process, but I find that performance is horrible.

For commercial applications the loss of calculation speed is a nightmare even with simple formulas. Add in charts/PTs and you can be looking at performance degradation in the region of 10 to 20 times that of 2003.

For me, if MS is serious about this being the BI tool of the future, they would be advised to fix the calculation engine quickly.