Busy cursor every few seconds because of Microsoft Office Click-To-Run (SxS) process

Question

For the past few months, we've experienced issues with some users having a BUSY (background busy) cursor symbol show ever few seconds, which is really annoying with it constantly doing this. First instance was with an employee with a new ARM / Snapdragon computer, but we've since had a few more people with regular HP Elitebook computers experience the same, with two people just having the issue start today (2/5/26).

From some searches on the internet, it seems to be related to the Microsoft Office Click-To-Run (SxS) process listed in task manager. It goes to 0.1% CPU usage every few seconds, timed with the busy cursor, and won't stop. If I end that process, the busy cursor problem goes away, indicating this process IS what's causing the busy cursor ever few seconds, but since that's an MS Update process, it eventually returns, and so does the busy cursor every few seconds.

Again, from searches on the Internet, some people have said it's updates to certain gaming software, which we don't have, so it's not that.

One thing I did notice in tests today, if I run REPAIR OFFICE (quick), it stops it, but as SOON as I start Outlook up again, it starts the issue. If I run repair (short) and start Word, Excel, Teams... it's fine. As soon as Outlook starts, the problem returns. When this first started a few months ago, I also tried the FULL Office repair (where it completely uninstalls and re-installs Office), but this didn't work then when I tried it.

Any suggestions? This is really visually annoying for people to have the cursor change back and forth every few seconds, and you can't click on anything when it's in the 'busy' state.

Thanks in advance for your answers.

Oh, and yes, all driver / system / windows updates have been run and are current.

Answer 1

I may have a clue as to what's going on with the pointer/run icon flapping and I do agree it is extremely annoying to the point of now being a necessity to find a way to manage the problem.

I tried the reboots etc and number of other suggestions.

I finally was able to verify that it looks related to outlook as indicated. The second item which came to mind was maybe it's polling on send and receive and a rather exhaustive search on the settings within outlook. There is a setting I changed and this seems to have had a positive effect. I'm waiting now to be sure it's resolved. If I'm correct outlook is polling way to often in a short amount of time and not sure why but at least I have my tiger by the tail or so it seems for now albeit early. :-)

In outlook -> file -> options -> advanced -> Send and Receive

Uncheck "Send immediately when connected" then click on "Send/Receive" and the next choice is yours. I adjusted "Schedule an automatic send/recived every "30" minutes to "1" minute.

My pointer/run status has stopped flashing every second or two.

Regards,

Robert

Answer 2

Still struggling with this, but trying some of your suggestions. To recap so far:

• Quick office repair fixes this, then starting Excel, Word, Teams is fine, but as soon as I start Outlook (Classic), busy cursor returns and stays there
• Oddly enough, the busy cursor only appears to happen in certain areas of the programs; in Excel, over the menu and status bars, same with Word. Busy cursor in Windows settings screens. Pretty much everywhere in Outlook.
• I have to run Office quick repair to get rid of the problem
• If I then start Outlook in SAFE mode, no issue
• Run Outlook regular, problem returns
• Ran quick office repair to get rid of problem, ran Outlook in Safe mode, no issue. UNCHECKED ALL add-ins, closed Outlook, ran in regular mode, busy cursor comes back even with ALL add-ins disabled
• Ran quick office repair to fix problem, changed to NEW Outlook ... problem doesn't exist in NEW Outlook. Most employees do not like using NEW Outlook though, so would still like to get Classic Outlook working without the busy cursor problem.
• I will continue to try some of your other suggestions and let you know if anything works.

Findings so far:

• It's Outlook Classic that causes the issue
• It's NOT an add-ins fault because I've disabled them all
• Outlook Classic will run in SAFE mode without causing the problem
• NEW Outlook does not seem to cause the problem

Answer 3

Thank you for your response and multiple things to try. I was actually surprised I received an answer because when I 'posted' the question yesterday, I immediately received a screen that said my post was deleted for violating the 'terms of conduct', which I had no idea why it said that. Anyway, after that happened, I tried running the FULL Online Office Repair from Add/Remove Programs, and that fixed the issue for both people who had it start yesterday. When I tried that a few months ago when we had the issue with others, it didn't work, but it did yesterday. So if others need to know, that worked for us. In the meantime, I'll keep your other suggestions in case it happens again or with other employees. Thanks.

Answer 4

Hi, Frank Tomecek

Thanks for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum.

Sorry for this frustrating situation that you're encountering. What you’re seeing is consistent with Microsoft Office Click-to-Run (SxS) repeatedly “waking up” to do background work (updates, licensing checks, or component validation), and in your case it’s being triggered specifically when Outlook starts, which points to an Outlook-specific component, profile, or add-in interaction rather than Office in general.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

Reproduce in Outlook Safe Mode (fastest way to confirm add-in involvement)

Run: outlook.exe /safe

If the busy cursor stops in Safe Mode, it is almost always a COM add-in or integration loaded only by Outlook. From there, disable add-ins in normal Outlook (File > Options > Add-ins > COM Add-ins) and re-enable one at a time to identify the culprit.

Create a fresh Outlook profile (rules out a corrupted profile or OST-related loop)

Even when Office Quick Repair helps briefly, a damaged Outlook profile can immediately re-trigger background validation when Outlook initializes mail stores. Create a new profile and test before migrating everything. (This is often quicker and more reliable than another full Office reinstall when the symptom is Outlook-only.)

Clear the Office/Outlook local cache that can keep Click-to-Run “busy”

Several Click-to-Run performance loops are tied to corrupted local cache, and clearing the Office file cache is a common remediation path. A typical location referenced is the Office file cache under the user profile (for example, OfficeFileCache for the installed version).

Verify Click-to-Run is the genuine binary (quick sanity check)

In Task Manager, right-click the Click-to-Run process > Open file location. The legitimate path is commonly under C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\ClickToRun. If it is not, treat it as suspicious and run a full malware scan.

Check whether “metered” networking is involved (surprisingly common with C2R loops)

There are documented cases where Click-to-Run behavior changes on metered connections and normalizes once metered is disabled. If these users are on VPN, mobile hotspot, or any metered policy, test with metered turned off.

As a controlled test, set Click-to-Run service to Manual (not Disabled)

This is not the long-term fix, but it’s a clean way to stop the constant cursor flipping while you isolate the Outlook trigger. Setting Microsoft Office Click-to-Run to Manual means it should start when needed rather than constantly in the background.

Hope this helps. Feel free to get back if you need further assistance.

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