A weird issue with Excel

[Shodan]

In the last few days, I noticed that Excel prevents my PC from shutting down, even though I never even opened it to begin with. As soon as I boot up my PC and go to Task Manager, it shows the Excel process running, but using pretty much no resources at all. If I actually open Excel, it's actually a separate entry in Task Manager. This only started happening a few days ago out of nowhere, no Windows updates, no Office updates, no using Excel this entire time, nothing. My Office is legitimate and licensed, downloaded directly from Microsoft and once again, never had this issue before. I checked startup apps and ran the whole "sfc /scannow" procedure, nothing.

[↑↑↓↓←→←→BASelect]

Run a virus scan. As some viruses will look like legit programs.

[Shodan]

Originally posted by ↑↑↓↓←→←→BASelect:

Run a virus scan. As some viruses will look like legit programs.

I forgot to add, I thought of that too, but nothing. I never do anything that could give me a virus to begin with either, no traces of piracy on my PC or anything of the sort. I ran a full scan as well just to be sure.

[_I_]

disable windows from hibernating instead of actually shutting down when you pick 'shut down'

run cmd as admin
powercfg -h off
and reboot

[Shodan]

Originally posted by _I_:

disable windows from hibernating instead of actually shutting down when you pick 'shut down'

run cmd as admin
powercfg -h off
and reboot

I never had hibernating as an option in power settings to begin with, only shut down on power button and sleep on sleep button. Fun fact, just yesterday I found out hibernating is a thing as I saw people complaining that shutting down isn't true shutting down anymore, so I checked my settings and it's all good. Still, this is just a workaround, as is ending the Excel task manually or just clicking "shut down anyway". I can't figure out what's causing it to begin with.

I shut down my PC every night and I put it to sleep up to a few times throughout the day.

I also read something about an issue with one Windows privacy setting causing this, but I don't have that setting on.

[ˢᵈˣ FatCat]

Maybe your excel have auto backup or connect to the cloud

[A&A]

Via the task maneger, open the location of this excel.

[Shodan]

Originally posted by ˢᵈˣ FatCat:

Maybe your excel have auto backup or connect to the cloud

No idea, I haven't been opening Office in general lately, I didn't change anything, and this just started happening a few days ago out of nowher.e

Originally posted by A&A:

Via the task maneger, open the location of this excel.

Already did, same location, and when I open Excel manually in that location, it appears as a separate entry in Task Manager.

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\root\Office16\EXCEL.EXE"

When I actually open Excel, the only difference in Task Manager is that there's that little arrow on the left of "Microsoft Excel" and when I expand it, there's plain "Excel" under "Microsoft Excel", while the problematic one is just "Microsoft Excel" and uses 0% CPU, SSD and network, and around 40 MB of RAM, while actual Excel is 60 MB.

[VoxxysTale]

I had a similar issue with Excel a while back, where it kept running in the background even when I hadn't opened it. It was super frustrating because it delayed my shutdown, too! After some digging, I found that it was related to an Excel add-in that was running in the background. I went to the "Options" in Excel, disabled all add-ins, and that seemed to fix the issue for me. Another thing that helped was using the "Repair Office" option in the control panel—it might help clear up any weird bugs like this. Also, check out https://www.myexcelonline.com/ for some great free Excel templates if you’re looking to make your spreadsheets more efficient!