Excel 2003 customize toolbar command lost

[Guest]

Recently my Excel does not keep customize toolbar commands (like paste
special value). Once excel is close and re-open, the customized commands
dissappeared.

thanks,

 

[Guest]

Are you working off a network or home PC.
I find its a common problem with network PC's.

One fix if you have complex customized toobars is to save them using the
Mircosoft Office Save My Setting Wizard. The program installs with Office and
should be in you Start > Programs > Microsoft Office Tool > Save My Setting
Wizard.
So if you do lose toolbars you can simply roll back to yoursaved settings.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Alex

Could be your *.XLB file is corrupt..............can get this way if overly
large from too many customizations or just for fun<g>

Close Excel.

Look for your Excel11.XLB file which stores customizations to toolbars and
menus.

Usual storage is........................

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel

Rename it to Excel11.xlbold then re-start Excel, which will give you a new
Excell11.xlb file as default.

Note the size of this file.

Make a few minor changes to a Toolbar or Menu then close Excel.

Check the Excel11.xlb file size........any change?

Open Excel..........have your latest customizations stuck?


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Guest]

Hi Gord:

I did what you said and I got this:

- The new Excel11.XLB file kept my customized commands in
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel

- when I start Excel, this file is not opened, and customized commands are
lost.

- However, when I moved the Excel11.XLB to C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART; the customized menu are OK.

- Any time I made a change to Excel11.XLB I will have to copy from
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel
to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART
in order to keep the lastest customization.

If you know how to avoid this, if would be great. Anyway I can work in this
way.

Thanks a lot.

Alex

 

[Gord Dibben]

Alex

Responses in-line below............

Hi Gord:

I did what you said and I got this:

- The new Excel11.XLB file kept my customized commands in
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel

As it should.

- when I start Excel, this file is not opened, and customized commands are
lost.

This is not a good thing but I am not sure why your Excel should work
differently from the norm.

- However, when I moved the Excel11.XLB to C:\Program Files\Microsoft
Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART; the customized menu are OK.

- Any time I made a change to Excel11.XLB I will have to copy from
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel
to C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\XLSTART
in order to keep the lastest customization.

This is cumbersome and prone to error. Best we get you back to default
behaviour.

Try re-registering Excel.................

Close Excel first and On the Windows Taskbar

1) Start>Run "excel.exe /unregserver"(no quotes)>OK.
2) Start>Run "excel.exe /regserver"(no quotes)>OK.
See the space between exe and /regserver

You might have to designate a full path to excel.exe.
In that case Start>Run "C:\yourpath\excel.exe /regserver"(no quotes)>OK.

Alternative.............With Excel open go to Help>Detect and Repair and run
through that.


Gord

 

[Dave Peterson]

Just to add to Gord's response.

Excel has a few XLStart folders. And if you have a *.xlb file in each of those
files, then you could confuse excel. It'll open up each file (I'm not sure
about the order, but it's not what you want!).

And you could be saving your changes to the right folder, but when you reopen
excel, those changes get overlaid with an older *.xlb file (from a different
folder).

I'd close excel and look for all *.xlb in all my folders (look for hidden files
in hidden folders, too).

Then I'd delete/rename all of them.

Start excel and make a change to any toolbar.
Close excel and reopen.
If it worked, then make your real changes.

Later, search for that *.xlb and back it up to a nice location. You'll want to
put it back into the correct location after you make a change you didn't mean to
make (it happens!).