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Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

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Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#81

Post by 486sx33 »

bhouston wrote: post #75
mrandish wrote: post #50

Between Office's increasingly bloated size, slow booting and super annoying CoPilot icon right where I'm working (which still can't be turned off in OneNote) - I'm on the edge of dumping Office. I pretty much only use OneNote and a little OneDrive (3% of the included storage plan) to sync files between machines and I run Word and Powerpoint less than a dozen times a year combined. Even as a paying customer, all the O…

I switch to Google Docs/Sheets/Presentations many years ago as my primary tool and I haven't installed any type of local office in 6 years. Google Workspace has built in digital signature tools and the change tracking in Google Docs is also really good.

Google workspace is awful , it’s super dooper awful with Gemini shoved up my ass all the time , which is impossible to disable, and trains on all my data. Gsuite makes office look good !!

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#82

Post by milch »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #47
NoPicklez wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree, my Windows machine loads into the OS quicker from login than my Mac.

Probably a corporate machine vs personal desktop divide. My corporate windows laptop has so much security/keylogger/spyware crap that time to unlock is ridiculous.

I just timed it, my personal Mac takes 10s to the login screen and then 4 seconds to the desktop after putting in my password. My work Mac takes 3+ min. All of the endpoint monitoring stuff they put on there really takes its toll.

My windows gaming PC starts up in about 30s from a cold boot (though it's not encrypted...), so I would at least put the personal Mac and the Windows machine in the same ballpark. I couldn't have told you which one is faster without timing it. The work machine laptop is clearly noticeably slower.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#83

Post by Ferret7446 »

486sx33 wrote: post #81
bhouston wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switch to Google Docs/Sheets/Presentations many years ago as my primary tool and I haven't installed any type of local office in 6 years. Google Workspace has built in digital signature tools and the change tracking in Google Docs is also really good.

Google workspace is awful , it’s super dooper awful with Gemini shoved up my ass all the time , which is impossible to disable, and trains on all my data. Gsuite makes office look good !!

The workspace admins can disable Gemini, among many other things. Google also does not "steal" your data if you read the ToS; any training is strictly scoped to that workspace.

If you thought for a few seconds, you would realize that companies with big legal teams would not sign a contract that would give Google the right to their data.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#84

Post by moralestapia »

moralestapia wrote: post #68
spicybright wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How? Any other office suite or program could do the same thing.

You made me go back and read TFA, I don't think that's the case. Where did you saw that?

Update: nowhere, xi was just making stuff up.

Many such cases.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#85

Post by gh02t »

mrandish wrote: post #79
bee_rider wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t like Windows. And it is baffling to me that startup speed is a figure-of-merit nowadays given how absurdly fast drives have gotten. With those caveats aside, I must unfortunately acknowledge that Windows startup is perfectly fine (Linux is faster, but again this competition is pointless. Unless you are some compute infrastructure supplier and need to boot a million VMs a day or whatever). Sometimes when peopl…

> Windows startup is perfectly fine No... it's not fine. I don't reboot all the time for work or run a zillion VMs, I'm just a regular user. But sometimes when I'm rebooting - I need to get to necessary information quickly. Waiting 40+ seconds is an eternity when standing at an airport immigration counter pulling up a pre-filed form that they said I did not need to bring but which they're now demanding (because their…

Weirdly for me I don't have much trouble with startup, but shutting down windows seems to take an impossibly long time, especially on my work laptop. Like several minutes. Probably some misbehaving program and maybe not windows' fault, but I have no idea what it's doing just sitting there at the final screen after its killed all remaining tasks for eternity.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#86

Post by eviks »

mrandish wrote: post #76
cosmotic wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that Chrome has been doing this for years. ChatGPT agrees and links to https://ihaveapc.com/2024/10/understanding-chromes-continue-...

At installation Chrome, Edge browser and Acrobat Reader all silently add multiple background tasks to Windows startup which will then run at every boot and log on. Those tasks check for updates, pre-load and ensure their usage analytics get dutifully reported. Because I only use those apps on rare occasion, I go remove all those tasks. And each of those apps checks to see if its tasks are still there on every run or…

I'd also like an app that ran on schedule and reverted everything to the state you want.

Don't know the solution, but one idea - is it possible to change task permissions so that those Chrome update processes will fail to update tasks?

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#87

Post by ipcress_file »

spicybright wrote: post #43
ipcress_file wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given that Office ran on my 486 and Word and Excel did everything back then that I still need them to do today, a slow startup time on modern hardware is ridiculous. Office should be modular with a lean core and extensions for those who need them.

I wish libreoffice was better. I've tried replacing office with it and every time it has the weirdest stuff going on. UI is clunky, importing/exporting office made docs is glitchy, and I've even run into actions that don't get pushed to the undo stack. I know this stuff always gets slowly ironed out, and the devs are working really hard, but it's just a shame it's never been a viable alternative for so long.

I bought Softmaker Office last year. The Textmaker word processor is better than LibreOffice Writer. It's more MS Office compatible, so I don't get complaints about formatting issues from co-workers.

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#88

Post by sentientslug »

mrandish wrote: post #79
bee_rider wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t like Windows. And it is baffling to me that startup speed is a figure-of-merit nowadays given how absurdly fast drives have gotten. With those caveats aside, I must unfortunately acknowledge that Windows startup is perfectly fine (Linux is faster, but again this competition is pointless. Unless you are some compute infrastructure supplier and need to boot a million VMs a day or whatever). Sometimes when peopl…

> Windows startup is perfectly fine No... it's not fine. I don't reboot all the time for work or run a zillion VMs, I'm just a regular user. But sometimes when I'm rebooting - I need to get to necessary information quickly. Waiting 40+ seconds is an eternity when standing at an airport immigration counter pulling up a pre-filed form that they said I did not need to bring but which they're now demanding (because their…

Something is wrong with your computer if it takes 40 seconds, I have a similar samsung SSD and it takes like 20 seconds maximum from a cold boot to desktop on Win11

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#89

Post by eviks »

nine_k wrote: post #61

Office is large and may not load instantly. If you use it all day anyway, preloading and not closing it makes sense. The same way I preload Emacs and Firefox. Of course if you do not use Office all day, and are OK to wait until it loafs on demand, the preloading should be turned off. (And, frankly, if you don't use Office, why do you need Windows anyway? To play games that don't run on a Steamdeck?)

> why do you need Windows anyway? To play games that don't run on a Steamdeck?

To instantly find any file anywhere, nice productivity boost (among many)

Re: Office is too slow, so Microsoft is making it load at Windows startup

#90

Post by al_borland »

Spooky23 wrote: post #53
mrandish wrote: post #50

Between Office's increasingly bloated size, slow booting and super annoying CoPilot icon right where I'm working (which still can't be turned off in OneNote) - I'm on the edge of dumping Office. I pretty much only use OneNote and a little OneDrive (3% of the included storage plan) to sync files between machines and I run Word and Powerpoint less than a dozen times a year combined. Even as a paying customer, all the O…

You’ll be back. LibreOffice is so visually gross it’s pretty hard to use.

For the occasional user, various online office suites are also an option.

On my personal computers, I haven’t use MS Office in close to 20 years.

I use it at work, because that’s what we’re given to use, but 95% of my usage is opening CSV files in Excel. I find documents are rarely written in Word anymore, and the use of PowerPoint is actively discouraged at this point.

If the parent commenter only uses Office a dozen times per year, they should quite easily get by with something else. Google Docs, iWork, a simple text editor… there are options beyond LibreOffice. Which specific options would depend one what those dozen uses actually are.

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