I have a fast Windows 7 PC with two SSDs and 16GB of RAM, so I'm used to programs loading very fast. But recently, for no reason I can figure out, Excel has started taking way too long to open Excel files (of any size--even blank files). This is occurring with Excel 2010 and with Excel 2013 after I upgraded, hoping to solve the problem. Here a couple scenarios:

• If I start Excel directly, it opens almost instantly. No problem there.
• If I start Excel directly, and then open any Excel file (.xls or .xlsx), it loads almost instantly. Still no problem
• BUT if I attempt to open any Excel file directly, with Excel not running, it consistently takes 10-11 seconds for Excel to start. I get no error messages, just a spinning cursor for 10-11 seconds, and then the file opens.

During the delay while Excel is trying to start, I'm not really seeing any discernible spike in CPU or memory usage, other than explorer.exe. This problem is only occurring with Excel, not Word or any other program I'm aware of.

I've searched around quite a bit on this question and found various others who have experienced it, but the solutions that worked for them are not working for me. For a few people it was a problem with scanning network drives, but my problem is purely with local files; I have no network drives, and the problem persists even with all network connections disabled.

Some people suggested worksheets with corrupted formulas or links, but I'm experiencing this with ANY Excel file: even blank worksheets.

Others thought it was a problem with add-ins, but I have all Excel add-ins disabled (as far as I can tell).

One person solved it by disabling a "clipboard manager" process that was running in the background, but I don't have that. I've disabled as many startup and background processes as I can, but the problem persists. I've run malware scans, disk cleanup, CCleaner, and installed Excel 2013. I've deleted temporary files, enabled SuperFetch, and edited registry keys. Still can't get rid of the problem. Any ideas?

My system details: Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit, Excel 2013 32-bit, 16GB RAM, all programs installed on SSD.