I ran into a problem with Excel taking a long time to open a file from Windows Explorer. If Excel is started first and a file is opened from within Excel, the file opens immediately.  This problem is unusual, but does exist on some machines. Double-clicking an Excel file to open it from within Windows Explorer, or from Outlook (Excel attachment) can take 30 seconds or more, even if its a small file size.

The first place to begin when troubleshooting this issue is the Microsoft Support article at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211494. If this doesn’t resolve the problem, then try the steps below.

To fix the issue in Windows XP try the following:

  1. Open “Windows Explorer” (explorer.exe)
  2. Select “Tools” | “Folder Options…”
  3. Click on the “File Types” tab
  4. Select the ”XLS” file extension (Excel 97-2003 Worksheet)
  5. Click “Advanced”
  6. Select “Open" from the ‘Actions’ list
  7. Click “Edit…”
  8. In the “Application used to perform action:” field*, change the text to:
    "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\EXCEL.EXE" /e "%1"

To add the XLSX file type (Excel 2007 Worksheet), repeat steps 4-8.

*Note: The double quotes are required around the path and the %1.

I have not seen this as a problem with Windows Vista. However, it could possibly be affected.