Excel 2008 typing *SLOW* with Parallels open

[bgstults]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I originally posted a topic on this back in February, but it is still an unresolved problem, and that topic is now closed:
<http://www.officeformac.com/ProductForums/Excel/884>

I am using current (fully updated) versions of Parallels and Office 2008, with Windows XP Pro SP3 running in the guest OS. When Parallels is open and active, typing in cells in Excel -- even in a blank spreadsheet -- is extremely slow. There is a lag of several seconds between keystrokes and when the text appears on screen, and keystrokes are often lost as well. I do not experience this problem or behavior in Word 2008 or PowerPoint 2008.

This is on a current-model MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM, so I'm not exactly slouching on the hardware here. There are no other abnormal background processes going on. The only thing I even use on the Windows side is Outlook, and the only third-party program even installed there is Office 2003. On the Mac side, I pretty much keep FireFox and an IRC client open, and that's about it. So we shouldn't have crazy competition for resources here on a pretty powerful machine.

* Pausing* the virtual machine in Parallels restores Excel to its normal snappiness. Obviously, this isn't a real solution.

I can temporarily solve the problem by trashing *all* of the Office preferences on the Mac side. This makes Excel seem snappy for a while...but the sluggishness eventually returns.

Finally, replicating the identical virtual environment in VMWare, I don't get the sluggishness. I hate to even mention this, because it starts the whole finger pointing thing on forums sometimes, but it's significant I figure. I've posted on the Parallels forums, but they have been unable to help or report that they can reproduce the problem, even though other users have documented running into the exact same thing.

 

[Guest]

I have the feeling that Excel typing issues are related somehow to networking issues. I'm assuming Parallels is set up with shared folders, etc? Does it persist if you disabled the shares and turned off Parallels networking?

 

[bgstults]

Well I'll be damned. After tons and tons of posts, I think you might have diagnosed it.

Shared networking doesn't seem to have any impact (I've tried shared, host only, and even releasing my IP altogether). But shared folders (at least in my couple minutes of testing here) does.

Cool. Now the question is, what can be done about it, other than disabling shared networking :\

 

[Bob Greenblatt]

Well I'll be damned. After tons and tons of posts, I think you might have
diagnosed it.

Shared networking doesn't seem to have any impact (I've tried shared, host
only, and even releasing my IP altogether). But shared folders (at least in my
couple minutes of testing here) does.

Cool. Now the question is, what can be done about it, other than disabling
shared networking :\

Well, I'm not so sure it is networking. I use Parallels (Win XP) and Excel
2003 XP all the time, along with Excel 2008. The parallels environment uses
shared network drives on the Mac as well as VPN access to other drives on
remote servers. I have NEVER noticed any degradation in Excel 2008 when
Windows XP and Excel 2003 is open in Parallels. I am using A MacBook Pro
with 4G RAM, OS 10.5.4.

 

[bgstults]

I'm glad it's working great for you. Unfortunately, it isn't for me. And this is the only thing I've found thus far that can rather reliably reproduce or solve the problem -- absent pausing the Parallels machine, which is a non-option.

Per my original post, with an identically duplicate configuration on the VMWare side, I have no problems as well.

So it seems like, for whatever reason, in certain sets of circumstances, Parallels and Excel compete for resources. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like either side has a solution in sight.

 

[Todd Aton]

I have a first-gen MacBook Pro with only 2 Gig of RAM. I use Parallels daily
with Office 2007 and don't see performance degradation in Excel 2008 with
Parallels running in the background.

Would you send me a copy of your system profile? We do see differences in
behavior on different configurations from time to time which would explain
why you have the problem and Bob and I don't.

Todd Aton
Macintosh Business Unit
Microsoft Corporation
(e-mail address removed)

Microsoft makes no warranties, express, implied or statutory, as to the
information in this post.

 

[Guest]

FWIW when iDisk is slow, or seemingly any network connection is slow, Excel tends to beachball when I go to enter data, even if Excel doesn't seem to have anything stored on the network in question.