Custom Property Tab and Task Pane freezing SW

Hi,

I have been working on this issue for a long time and I cannot figure the way to solve it.

It started on my colleague workstation and now on mine as well.

I created custom property files for our group to share on the network. Custom files include some project related info that are store in a excel file plus some other list (Vendors, Manufacturers, etc).  In total I have 3 excel files governing what a user will select in the custom tab.

Do you know of any issue, or are experiencing a loss in performance, freezing or anything else due to the property tab?

If I click on one or more components SW freezes and need to wait, sometimes even 20 seconds before the cursor becomes responsive again.

If I take the custom property file out of the specified location the problem goes away

If I disable the Task pane the problem goes away.

What is going on? I searched SPR but don't see anything.

I tried also saving the excel files in 97-2003 format but that did not solve the issue.

Thanks

SolidworksGeneral