Disabling multi-threading in Excel 2007

[Bradley Smith]

We are running Excel 2007 in a Terminal Server environment and do not want
one instance of Excel 2007 to consume more than one core at a time (for
obvious load balancing reasons).

I know how to disable it via the GUI, but this must be done manually per
user and the user can always re-enable it.

How does one force this change via Group Policy or registry and prevent the
user from changing it?

Any help appreciated.

 

[Harlan Grove]

We are running Excel 2007 in a Terminal Server environment and do
not want one instance of Excel 2007 to consume more than one core
at a time (for obvious load balancing reasons).

I know how to disable it via the GUI, but this must be done manually
per user and the user can always re-enable it.

How does one force this change via Group Policy or registry and
prevent the user from changing it?

....

This isn't a good newsgroup in which to ask system administrative
questions. Lots of people know the end-user licensing plans. Very few
know terminal server.

You'd be better off asking this in a Terminal Server newsgroup like
microsoft.public.windows.terminal_services . I'm crossposting this
response and setting its followup-to tag to that newsgroup.

 

[Bob Buckland ?:-\)]

Hi Bradley,

Harlan would certainly know more about the workings of Excel than I.

My understanding is that the UI setting that I think you're referring to

Office Button=>Excel Options=>Advanced=>Formulas
'Enable multi=threaded calculation'

is one that is workbook specific and as such, there isn't an ADM or OCT setting for it for Office that I recall (but I could be
mistaken <g>).

While it can be toggled off with VBA, perhaps in a template when it loads a new workbook ('Application.MultiThreadedCalculation’)
I don't know if that would keep it from being toggled back on by a user.

There is an Office 2007 Admin Template (.ADM) (Group Policy) setting under Excel 2007 for
'Disable Items in User Interface'
that allows some blocking of keyboard shortcut and menu/toolbar buttons, but I haven't tried to use it with the Excel options
dialog.

In addition to following up in the Terminal Services group that Harlan referred you to, you may want to also use the link below to
follow-up in the Excel discussion group.


===============
We are running Excel 2007 in a Terminal Server environment and do not want
one instance of Excel 2007 to consume more than one core at a time (for
obvious load balancing reasons).

I know how to disable it via the GUI, but this must be done manually per
user and the user can always re-enable it.

How does one force this change via Group Policy or registry and prevent the
user from changing it?

Any help appreciated. <<
--
Please let us know if this has helped,

Bob Buckland ?
MS Office System Products MVP

LINKS
A. Specific newsgroup/discussion group mentioned in this message:
news://msnews.microsoft.com/microsoft.public.excel
or via browser:
http://microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/?dg=microsoft.public.excel

B. MS Office Community discussion/newsgroups via Web Browser
http://microsoft.com/office/community/en-us/default.mspx
or
Microsoft hosted newsgroups via Outlook Express/newsreader
news://msnews.microsoft.com

 

[Bradley Smith]

Hi Bradley,

Harlan would certainly know more about the workings of Excel than I.

My understanding is that the UI setting that I think you're referring to

Office Button=>Excel Options=>Advanced=>Formulas
'Enable multi=threaded calculation'

is one that is workbook specific and as such, there isn't an ADM or OCT
setting for it for Office that I recall (but I could be
mistaken <g>).

While it can be toggled off with VBA, perhaps in a template when it
loads a new workbook ('Application.MultiThreadedCalculation')
I don't know if that would keep it from being toggled back on by a user.

There is an Office 2007 Admin Template (.ADM) (Group Policy) setting under
Excel 2007 for
'Disable Items in User Interface'
that allows some blocking of keyboard shortcut and menu/toolbar buttons,
but I haven't tried to use it with the Excel options
dialog.

Doing that would indeed disable certain interface change features but the
fact remains that Office 2007 it setting Excel 2007 multi-threaded by
default. I would still need a way to set this via a GPO or registry entry.
It just needs to be set once per user. Would rather not use a VBA. It should
be in a GPO somewhere.

In addition to following up in the Terminal Services group that Harlan
referred you to, you may want to also use the link below to
follow-up in the Excel discussion group.

I did not post in Terminal Server group as this is not a Terminal Server
question, but an Office 2007 question. I will follow up with the Excel
groups though.

Thanks.

 

[Harlan Grove]

I did not post in Terminal Server group as this is not a Terminal
Server question, but an Office 2007 question. I will follow up with
the Excel groups though.

One part is an Excel questions: how to turn it off. You seem to know
how to do that interactively.

I'd suggest you check the registry values under

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Excel\Options

before and after you change this particular setting. Use the changed
value (disabled threading) as the initial value for TS user profiles.

On the other hand, how to prevent users from turning multiple threads
on isn't really an Excel questions, it's an administrative question.
You may believe since it's an admin question about Excel that that
makes it an Excel/Office question. You may be right. But I can assure
you you're unlikely to get answers to questions like this in this
newsgroup or most of the Excel newsgroups. Group policies isn't
something with which the typical advanced Excel user has much if any
experience. It's something with which system admins may have
experience, and you'd be more likely to find those people in TS or
Windows server newsgroups rather than applications newsgroups.

But don't take my word for it. Waste a few weeks trying to get an
answer in applications newsgroups.