5/9/2012 - Excel Security Update Causing Issues with Excel (KB2597166)

Question

System: Office 2010 32 bit / Window 7 

After windows office security update of 5/9/12 - KB2597166 - Excel runs more slowly, and shows the error indicating that even the smallest operation will take a long time (system resources) and that undo is unavailable.  The longer Excel is used, the worse these issues become.  

Uninstalling the update fixes these issues.

Any idea when this update will be fixed?

Answer 1

Could it be a conflict between the update and an add-in in Excel? I also have Excel 2010 32-bit on Windows 7, and I haven't experienced problems in Excel since installing the update.

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Regards, Hans Vogelaar

Answer 2

I have the same problem, same fix worked. Perhaps an add-in, I use quite a few. Don't have the time to try and isolate it today. Thanks for any further suggestions...

Answer 3

Sorting data in Excel 2010 64-bit after having applied KB2597166 degrades performance significantly during sort. A sort of 9200 rows normally takes a blink of an eye, now it takes several seconds and I get NOT RESPONDING. Sorting just a few rows gives same result. Once KB2597166 is uninstalled problems no longer exists. Suggest that the development / test team do som sort runs to isolate the problem further and re-release KB2597166 once the problem has been resolved.

Regards, Peter Sie.

Answer 4

+1 here.

I posted in an existing thread on the same error but this is not related since it was due to the latest update posted in the title.

I am running 32 bit Excel on Windows 7 64 bit and any time I tried to sort data, the error occured.  For now I have the update uninstalled and running fine.  Please fix the issue so that I can turn on automatic update once again before the damn notification drives me nuts! :-P

Edit:  I do not have any add-ins that I am aware of.

Answer 5

when selecting data to perform a sort if i select all it is extremly slow,

if i use CTRL-SHIFT-END to select the data adn sort it is in a blink of an eye

either way i selected the data it showed 35899 cells of data

Answer 6

I have the same problem going on for many of our users who work with very large spreadsheets. Suddenly they are not able to Sort (they get an error message). Once I uninstalled this update, it worked fine. I've had to leave it uninstalled for Hundreds of users. Please get a fix ASAP.

Answer 7

Same issue here as well, also resolved by uninstalling KB2597166.  Hoping this will be fixed soon via Windows Updates as I don't want to have to attempt to uninstall this update on all PC's via GPO or what not...

Answer 8

yup its the Security Update for Microsoft Excel 2010 (KB2597166) 64-Bit Edition

A security vulnerability exists in Microsoft Excel 2010 64-Bit Edition that could allow arbitrary code to run when a maliciously modified file is opened. This update resolves that vulnerability.

My App used to execute in .13 sec, now my core i7 processor with 8 Gb Memory is hung because of this...

Happens mainly where sort is used and the cells.select is used as range before sort.

Uninstall the Security Update to rollback using windows update

Answer 9

Hi,

I reported the issue internally. Once I get news I'll update this thread. 

best regards,

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Answer 10

Hi! Do you know some new? I have a problem on computers of my enterprise....My WSUS Servers has send this update ....Thanks

Answer 11

We are also having this issue, uninstall of the patch is an immediate fix. But we have hundreds of PCs that have this patch already. HELP!

Answer 12

Many thanks for the info.  I have an Excel 2010 worksheet which does lots of internal macro sorts which normally takes about 90 seconds to run.  When KB2597166 was installed it took over 5 MINUTES to complete.  I ran some traces on it and can confirm that it is select rows & Selection.Sort which is really slow.  Removed the update and am now back to 90 second updates. 

Answer 13

Hi,

I'm writing to give you an update to this issue. The issue has reached corresponding product team, and once the fix is ready, team will post a blog.  You can follow up this blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/the_microsoft_excel_support_team_blog/

At the same time, I'll keep updating.

best regards,

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Answer 14

I found that manually selecting the cells or using Ctrl+A and then sorting will work fine, but clicking the top-left corner adjacent to Column A and row 1 to select all and then sorting will cause the error. Potentially acceptable workaround for some users until there is a permanent fix.

Answer 15

Hi Forrest, glad to know the problem with KB2597166 has reached the product team. However, no other news? It's been 2 weeks now. By the way, here are the symtoms I have observed:

Sorting an entire sheet -- error. Inserting a row at the top of the sheet -- error. It seems to happen with actions that effect an entire sheet. For the sorting error, if you manually select all the rows, the sort will work.

I used to get this "not enough resources to complete the action" error quite frequently under Excel 2003 and Excel 2007. The problem went away in Excel 2010. Is it possible that the product team accidently put back some of the 2003/2007 code into 2010 somehow?

Hope you can post an update when the problem has been fixed. Many thanks.

Answer 16

Forrest-

Thanks for your work on this.  We have a major excel application dead in the water as a result of this update.  Is it possible there is a registry hack which would allow folks to block the update?  Anxiously awaiting a fix . . .

Billy Allred

Answer 17

Hi Forrest,

We have several users who are experiencing the same issues and the simple fix has been to remove KB2597166.  We have over 200 computers that already have the update installed and would appreciate a hotfix of some sort that we could easily deploy to fix the issue.  Please keep us updated as it has already been close to a week from your last update.

Thank you

Jason Chang

Answer 18

Hi,

Team has published workaround to this issue, please check it over the blog: http://blogs.technet.com/b/the_microsoft_excel_support_team_blog/archive/2012/05/22/quot-excel-cannot-complete-this-task-with-available-resources-quot-after-installing-ms12-030.aspx

I don't have news to hotfix yet. But I'll keep this thread update till the issue resolved.

best regards,

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Answer 19

The Ctrl+A then sort workaround is working beautifully with my installation of Excel 2010 64-bit. Thanks!

Answer 20

any update on a fix for this, not just the workaround?

Answer 21

Had the same issue on my HP Envy laptop running Office 2010. (i7 with 8 gigs of memory) Simple sorts and trying to delete worksheet data were giving me the "Not enough resourses to complete... error.

The update must have been for 2010 only. I don't see it on any of my other computers running 2007. 

I have just uninstalled the update but haven't tested the results yet. I am working on a major vba project and and rolled back to 2007 on a desk top because of the errors and slow response time I was getting out of 2010 on the Envy.  Never thought the errors could have been caused by an update.

Thanks for the info...

Regards 

Brad

Answer 22

Hi,

I don't have news to hotfix yet. But I'll keep this thread update till the issue resolved.

best regards,

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Can we please just have Office 2010 SP2 ? I mean it's been about a year since SP1 was rolled-out.
There are issues with VBA corruption for large modules...and problems with VBA in moving Pivot Fields.

Answer 23

Hi folks,

The fix has been released in late Jun. It can be downloaded at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2712235

Note that it's for Office 2010. 

Thanks,

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Answer 24

Those hotfixes are extremely narrow in scope and don't even get close to addressing the issues I've encountered with Office 2010 VBA.

Answer 25

Yes, this fix is for Office 2010, slow sorting issue. For VBA issue you run into, would you elaborate the issue in a new thread?

thanks.

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Answer 26

Sisnce when is a hotfix and official resolution to the problem, Hotfixes  are just temporary fixes (lot of times not fully tested) untill an official update is released, is there any word on an official update that superceded this will be released?

Answer 27

The fix will be integrated in next major service pack without doubt. But there's no information when it will be released.

thanks for the feedback.

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Answer 28

But there's no information when it will be released.

Office 2010 is way behind previous releases as far as service pack updates go. SP1 is over 1 year old. No prior office releases have had fewer than 2 service pack releases.

Did I miss something ?

Answer 29

I think you're right. But that doesn't imply futue release schedule. 

thanks,

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager