When launching Microsoft Office applications, the splash screen will hang for sometimes a few second while the application starts. This is also when the application will load add-ins like Power-user. 

Key factors impacting the loading time of Microsoft Office

Usually, the loading time should be somewhere between 1 and 10 seconds. Independently from Power-user, this time will vary based on different factors.

Cold Start vs Warm Start

When the Office application has not been used for a little while (about 20-30 minutes), the underlying .NET framework used for Office applications will make a Cold Start and need more time to start.

If you just restart an Office application that was active in the past few minutes, the .NET framework will make a Warm Start and be faster.

You can read about Cold Start and Warm Start of the .NET framework here.

Impact of add-ins on the loading time of Office applications 

Aside from the loading time of the Microsoft Office application itself, additional time will be added to load add-ins and other external components. 

The more add-ins you have installed, the longer the splash screen will be displayed while they are loaded. If your applications are packed with add-ins, you may want to consider disabling the ones that you don't need or use to optimize the start up time.

Impact of Power-user on the loading time

Normal loading time for Power-user 

In the vast majority of cases, Power-user should load very fast, in less than 1 second. So the impact should be fairly invisible.

If you observe a long loading time, it may be caused by your antivirus, and we recommend to add an exclude for Power-user to the antivirus, as described below.

Improving the loading time by adding exclusion to your antivirus

Adding exclusions to your antivirus for folders used by Power-user should reduce the loading time of the add-in, should you observe an unusually long loading time.

Below is the list of Power-user folders that should be added to the exclusion list:

• The installation folder, which is by default: C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Power-user
  
• The folder used for storing cache files and settings: C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Documents\Power-user
• The folder used for temporary files: C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Temp\Power-user