How Do I Turn Off Applicaton Verification?

There is no way to tell if the are “known” without verifying them. However, it should definitely not take several minutes. It should only take a few seconds. It sounds like your hard drive could be failing.

Which version of Office are you running? Microsoft invalidates the validation every time it updates the software (which seems to be rather frequent). I had heard they worked on a fix with Apple, but perhaps not on Office 2016.

I was still getting them on Office 2016, but they weren't particularly slow. I just installed Office 2019 and didn't see the validation dialogs when I opened them for the first time.

Chris Winkler1 wrote:

Here is the report. I have auto updates turned off as i can't stop what i am doing to wait for updates.

You have security updates turned off. That’s not good. You don’t have to wait for those. It is fine to keep automatic app updates and another automatic upgrades turned off until you are ready for them. But security updates should always be enabled. Go to System Preferences > Software Update > Advanced and make sure it looks like this:

You won’t notice any delays or any problems with this setting - only better security.

I also have multiple things running for my business, but i am confused by the 46x 32bit applications that say won't work with this OS, where can i find that list?

It is a bit late for that now. You are already running Catalina. I plan to remove this list in the near future.

For now, you can go to the “Tools” menu in EtreCheck to find your 32-bit apps. This isn’t quite the same data as in your EtreCheck report for technical reasons. I didn’t anticipate the reaction from people regarding 32-bit apps so I didn’t have a way to make the data available for free. The version in EtreCheck’s Tools menu uses an operating system search, which will be similar, but not exactly the same.

I also appreciate all feedback about what the experts see and what i need to delete, remove or change...

There is nothing wrong with your hard drive. I haven’t noticed any long “verification” dialog for Office apps. I do get a dialog, but it is only for a few seconds. My SSD is much faster than yours however.

What do you have for your update channel? If you go to an Office app > Help > Check for updates, it will bring up the auto update tool. If you click on “Advanced” you can control how the updates run. If you have yours set to “preview” or “beta” channels, then you will get much more frequent updates. Plus Microsoft is now starting to roll out universal binaries, which could take longer to verify. And finally, there is an “automatic updates” button that you can uncheck. Then, you can update on your own schedule. These are usually not security issues, so it is perfectly safe. I have this setting turned off. I still get notifications every now and then that I need to update, but it doesn’t automatically install.

A definitive conclusion regarding suspected drive failure is not a straightforward exercise, but EtreCheck may provide a clue: Using EtreCheck - Apple Community.

As I understand it, it performs some file I/O and compares the elapsed time to what it should be.

Post its report in a reply to this Discussion if you would like someone to interpret it. Instructions for doing that are included in that User Tip.

Office 2016 does take a few minutes, or it seems like it. Certainly not a few seconds.