A benchmark version number is specific to a test. Benchmark version numbers change rarely and only when absolutely necessary to accommodate changes in third-party applications or bug fixes.

UL Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark v1.5.1397

May 2, 2025

This update brings a significant update to the Office Productivity Benchmark PowerPoint score calculation following the deprecation of the PowerPoint Merge function in Microsoft Office version 2502. This meant that Office Productivity scores from previous versions of Procyon using Microsoft Office v2502 or later produced lower scores than with previous versions of Microsoft Office.

Please note that this update only changes the constant to make score magnitudes more in line with previous scores. Office Productivity scores from Procyon 2.10.1729 and later are not comparable with scores from previous versions.

Updated

Office Productivity Benchmark

  • Updated the Office Productivity Benchmark score calculation following the deprecation of the Microsoft PowerPoint Merge function.
    • This change results in increases for the overall Office Productivity Benchmark Score of ~4%, and an increase for the PowerPoint section score of ~18% compared to Office Productivity Benchmark version 1.4, using Microsoft Office version 16.0.18623.20156, 64-bit.

Office Productivity Benchmark Mult-Platform (MP)

  • Updated the multi-platform version of the Office Productivity Benchmark to produce results that better line up with results from the multi-platform Office Productivity Benchmark on macOS. These changes improve scores on windows devices by ~15.5%, with the Microsoft Word section seeing improvements of ~53%. The variation in performance was due to different approaches between operating systems when updating the screen for the following operations in Microsoft Word.
    • Screen updating is now disabled in the benchmark on Windows to match behavior on macOS using AppleScript.
      • add image
      • edit image
      • copy paste
      • cut paste
      • copy from excel
      • table of content
    • Updated the metric measurements for the Microsoft Word section to better match behavior in macOS. These are the metrics that are affected:
      • add image
      • copy paste
      • cut paste
      • table of contents
  • Added a script to disable Office Performance Monitoring during benchmarking.
    Some devices can be randomly selected by Microsoft to enable this feature, which may notably affect benchmark results. You can ensure this feature is disabled by performing the following:
    • Opening Task Scheduler
    • Finding the task ‘Microsoft/Office/Office Performance Monitor’.
    • Check if its status is set to ‘Enabled’
    • With Admin privileges, run the script “disable_office_performance_monitor.ps1”.
    • Check the ‘Microsoft/Office/Office Performance Monitor’ task again to confirm it is now set to ‘Disabled’.

UL Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark v1.4.1358

March 3, 2025

Due to the deprecation of the merge function in Microsoft Office PowerPoint, and the change in PDF export quality, please note that Office Productivity results from previous versions of Procyon on Windows or macOS are not comparable with new results. In our testing sample with Office v16.0.18429.20158 en-US (64 bit), the main Office Productivity Scores were reduced by an average of ~5% for the standard benchmark while Overall PowerPoint Scores were reduced by an average of ~14%.

  • The Microsoft PowerPoint ‘merge’ step has been removed due to planned feature deprecation in Microsoft PowerPoint for Windows.  This change does not affect the Multi-Platform (MP benchmark).
  • Adjusted the PowerPoint ‘Export to PDF’ quality setting to “slides” instead of “handouts”. This change slightly increases the export time. This change affects both the standard and  the Multi-Platform (MP benchmark). 

Please note that Office Productivity results from previous versions of Procyon on Windows or macOS are not comparable with new results.  

UL Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark v1.3.1349

November 1, 2024

  • Added the Multi-Platform Office Productivity Benchmark. This can be compared with results from the Office Productivity Benchmark for macOS versions 2.1.250 and later.
    Please note that results from the new Multi-Platform Office Productivity Benchmark are not comparable with ‘MP’ scores from previous versions of the Office Productivity Benchmark on Windows. Remember to update the workloads after you perform the UI update to Procyon v2.9.

UL Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark v1.2

May 2, 2023

  • Added compatibility for systems running Apple macOS. The Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark on macOS uses workloads for Microsoft PowerPoint, Word, and Excel to measure performance.
  • On Systems running Microsoft Windows, the Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark now produces two scores: a Windows-only score that is compatible with scores from previous versions of Procyon Office Productivity, and an “MP Score” for comparison between systems running Windows and macOS.  

UL Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark v1.1

March 7, 2023

  • Updated to target .NET 4.8 and Visual Studio C++ 2022. 
  • This benchmark will no longer run in an elevated state. This may reduce scores on systems using 9th generation Intel CPUs or older.  

UL Procyon Office Productivity Benchmark v1.0

October 4, 2021

  • Launch version