Excel and Microsoft Products are started as subprocess of Edge

Question

Our organization utilizes various third-party and Microsoft platforms, including SharePoint 2016. We often use the "Download as Excel File" option, and our Group Policy is configured such that the exported Excel sheets are downloaded and opened automatically with the Excel Desktop App (we have Office 2016 installed). However, we have noticed that when opening these files, the Excel Desktop App session is launched as a subprocess of the Edge Process, rather than an independent main process in the Microsoft scheduler.

Are there any new ADMX files that can be used to manage this behavior in Windows 11. It seems that the latest group policies may not be readily available at the function level of Windows Server 2019.

Answer 1

Hi @ZJonas-2160 ,

This seems to be a by-design behavior of Chromium browsers, which I can confirm to be the same in Chrome. Unfortunately, currently there's no such group policy or system configuration to modify this behavior. But you can report this issue and request such a group policy by sending feedback (Alt+Shift+I) to the Dev Team.

Furthermore, you can refer to Tips for improving Excel's performance to try handling the performance issue.

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Best Regards,

Shijie Li

Answer 2

Many of our customers find the workaround of going to the Downloads section instead of "opening" or "exporting" the Excel document to be confusing, as it disrupts their established workflow. Therefore, I am inquiring about whether there exists a Group Policy or System Configuration that can be changed to modify this behavior.