excel 2003 starts and takes control of video appearance

When I start excel 03 the screen goes black momentarily then changes the
screen color. My wallpaper and other program windows show in strange color
combinations. When I close excel the screen goes black again and the screen
reverts to its original settings

What are your display settings (how many colours?)

my settings:

highest (32) bit
true color
1024 x 768
75hz refresh

"Ben McBen" wrote:

> What are your display settings (how many colours?)

So this doesnt happen with any other apps? I havent seen this for a while,
used to happen when my old PC "ran out" of colours. Have you tried going
down to 16 bit (just as an experiment).

"Brian B" wrote:

> my settings:
>
> highest (32) bit
> true color
> 1024 x 768
> 75hz refresh
>
> "Ben McBen" wrote:
>
> > What are your display settings (how many colours?)

yes, I had the same thought as you. I tried 16 bit and there was no change.

This is the only program including Word & Outlook that has this effect.

I tried de-installing office 2003 and re-installing including cleaning the
registry in between.

This happened after I had to reinstall XP. I did not wipe the disk. Excel
worked fine before this.

"Ben McBen" wrote:

> So this doesnt happen with any other apps? I havent seen this for a while,
> used to happen when my old PC "ran out" of colours. Have you tried going
> down to 16 bit (just as an experiment).
>
> "Brian B" wrote:
>
> > my settings:
> >
> > highest (32) bit
> > true color
> > 1024 x 768
> > 75hz refresh
> >
> > "Ben McBen" wrote:
> >
> > > What are your display settings (how many colours?)