Enabling "Hey Cortana" leads to hangs in DDE clients

Hi Christoph,

Thank you for sharing this information and Thank you for providing us your valuable Feedback.

Thank you for your patience.

DDE might be old... but Cortana is using it for something. This same issue causes Excel files to open ludicrously slow (20+ seconds, sometimes a minute) when double-clicked from File Explorer- because Excel uses DDE to open files. Disabling "Hey Cortana" fixes the issue.... although note that within the first minute or so of Windows 10 starting up, Cortana is doing something with the DDE channel and will cause the same problem even if Hey Cortana is disabled.

I find it interesting that his issue was reported on July 5th and it made it into RTM and nobody seems to care. How many business users out there are seeing weird slow-down problems and tearing their hair out?

 

Not sure if one of the latest cumulative updates changed something but now even disabling "Hey Cortana" does not stop SpeechRuntime.exe from interfering with DDE. And I can also reproduce the hangs when opening Excel files from Explorer as CMOYA described (although they only last about 8 seconds for me). Disabling "Hey Cortana" no longer helps but when SpeechRuntime.exe is killed with Task Manager the hangs disappear.

Not sure if one of the latest cumulative updates changed something but now even disabling "Hey Cortana" does not stop SpeechRuntime.exe from interfering with DDE. And I can also reproduce the hangs when opening Excel files from Explorer as CMOYA described (although they only last about 8 seconds for me). Disabling "Hey Cortana" no longer helps but when SpeechRuntime.exe is killed with Task Manager the hangs disappear.

The latest updates did not affect me. As per the instructions here Link you can try killing the Cortana and Cortana Background Task Host a few times (they'll come back up). And, also, rebooting after that. This seems to make Cortana release the DDE channel permanently.

It's a pity because I really like "Hey Cortana." It feels very futuristic using it. It's so ironic that such a futuristic feature is stymied by such an ancient part of Windows like DDE. It's laughable.

Also, it's not just Excel. It's also Access and Project... and when opening documents from OneDrive or SharePoint online, ALL Office apps.  

Windows 10.0 Pro Build  10240

YEP I have the same problem. For Me Cortana or something it uses NEVER releases DDE. So Far..Disabling Cortana Allows my DDE to work again.

This issue has returned for me out of nowhere even though Hey Cortana is still disabled. It is infuriating. Will try to go through all the steps again. *Sigh*

I don't think I have ever been as disappointed- nay, disgusted- at a Windows release like this. What bothers me is the positive general consensus. It boggles my mind that just because people hated Windows 8 so much that Windows 10 is seen as a godsend. It's not. It's horrendous.. and worrisome because it speaks to something very very wrong inside Microsoft. 

[EDIT]

Killing Cortana in Task Manager (it relaunches itself automatically) fixes the issue. No user should have to do this... and many users will probably think 10-15 seconds to open a file from File Explorer is just normal. It's not.

I think this issue has been fixed in one of the latest updates, at least I can't reproduce it anymore.

Hi! Chrysler, does Task Manager also have this DDE problem with Speech Runtime?

My SP4 from 14393.0 to 15063.138, Task Manager would be slower to open and switch tab in detail view after a period of time using Windows when Hey Cortana is enabled or speak to it once.

This problem can be fixed if I kill speechruntime.exe process or speak to Cortana once again, but it would happen again.

I've tried reset, recovery image, replacement, all has this problem... asked here, no answer was found.

And I find out other people also has this problem in Feedback Hub or other sites.

This guy seems to have the same problem as mine from 14393, unfortunately, there is no answer.

http://tqaforum.net/discussion/345822/windows-10-1607-task-manager-taskmgr-exe-taking-up-to-45-of-cpu

Now if I want to avoid this problem, only thing I can do is don't enable Hey Cortana and never click the speak icon.