I noticed a few months ago that the time to open Word or Excel files started getting a lot longer. This change happened at the same time on all of the systems I use. I also noticed a few months ago that something called "Microsoft Office file validation add-in" had arrived via Windows Update.

Yesterday, while doing some routine housekeeping on my laptop I removed it. Oh. My. God. It's like running a fresh install of office on a freshly installed PC! Instant file opens ... like it used to be. I'm sure that I am forsaking some element of security, but I just got a couple minutes of my life back every single day.