Steps to reproduce:

1. Open MS Excel
2. In Excel advanced options, enable direct editing in cells
3. Focus column a
4. press = to start a formula
5. Press right arrow and down arrow quickly multimple times or hold it pressed to select a column or a row
6. press colon : to select a range
7. press again an arrow key to select the cell range

Actual behavior:

When editing in cells is enabled and the steps above are performed, MS Excel creates an arry which basically inherits everything you do in the first cell to the neighbour cells.
At this stage, after a while NVDA freezes or becomes very sluggish while selecting cells which then are visually added to the array.

Expected behavior:

NVDA should not freeze or become sluggish while selecting the cells in the array.

NVDA logs, crash dumps and other attachments:

n/a

System configuration

NVDA installed/portable/running from source:

Installed

NVDA version:

Version: alpha-27996,d8396f9b (2023.2.0.27996)

Windows version:

11 22 H2 update

Name and version of other software in use when reproducing the issue:

MS Excel Microsoft 365 MSO (Version 2303 Build 16.0.16227.20202) 64 Bit

Other information about your system:

n/a

Other questions

Does the issue still occur after restarting your computer?

yes

Have you tried any other versions of NVDA? If so, please report their behaviors.

no

If NVDA add-ons are disabled, is your problem still occurring?

yes

Does the issue still occur after you run the COM Registration Fixing Tool in NVDA's tools menu?

yes

Enabling or disabling UIA does not make a difference here.