excel not starting up correctly

[Brian Murphy]

I have xl2003 messed up from coinstalling xl2000 and xl2007.
I've uninstalled all traces of office,
and reinstalled office 2003

When I double click an xls file in explorer, excel starts but doesn't
load the file.
If I double click another xls, another session of excel starts and
doesn't load the file.

I've tried excel.exe /unregserver and /regserver with no improvement
I've checked the settings/folder options/file types for the XLS entry
and found nothing wrong.

Any suggestions on where the problem might be?

Thanks,

Brian Murphy

 

[Joel]

You 1st need to find out from which office directory your excel is installed
(Office 10, office11, office 12). Do a search on your c:\ drive and locate
Excel.Exe.

Then go back to window explorer and verify the file types match the corrrect
directory (settings/folder options/file types for the XLS entry)

If you don't find the problem then look in the OPEN for the XLS Advance -
Edit

Action: &Open
Application: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE" /e (or
equivalent)
Use DDE checked

DDE Message: [open("%1")]
Application: Excel
DDE Application not running : Nothing
Topic: system

 

[Peter T]

FWIW, a slight difference for me in the 'Application used to perform
action' field

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE" /e \"%1\

Regards,
Peter T

 

[Peter T]

I have xl2003 messed up from coinstalling xl2000 and xl2007.

Would you happen to know what in particular got messed up and why, wouldn't
want to do same

Regards,
Peter T

 

[Brian Murphy]

Thanks for the suggestion, Joel.

The Folder Option settings are all set exactly as you described.
So the problem figures to be elsewhere.

One odd thing is, when the trouble started, the only symptom
was that each time I double clicked an xls file, a new
instance of excel would launch.

After trying real hard to fix this, that same problem
still happens, but now also the xls file doesn't open.

In a DOS box if I do
"c:\fullpath\excel.exe" /e mybook.xls
This does launch excel and open the file, with or without the /e
It also launches a new instance of excel each time I do it.

When I look for available XP restore points,
there don't appear to be any before Jan 1.
So I can't use that as a possible solution.
I would have expected there to be some in months before Jan-2009.

I really really really don't want to reinstall windows just to fix
this.

Brian

You 1st need to find out from which office directory your excel is installed
(Office 10, office11, office 12). Do a search on your c:\ drive and locate
Excel.Exe.

Then go back to window explorer and verify the file types match the corrrect
directory (settings/folder options/file types for the XLS entry)

If you don't find the problem then look in the OPEN for the XLS Advance -
Edit

Action: &Open
Application: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE" /e (or
equivalent)
Use DDE checked

DDE Message: [open("%1")]
Application: Excel
DDE Application not running : Nothing
Topic: system

I have xl2003 messed up from coinstalling xl2000 and xl2007.
I've uninstalled all traces of office,
and reinstalled office 2003

When I double click an xls file in explorer, excel starts but doesn't
load the file.
If I double click another xls, another session of excel starts and
doesn't load the file.

I've tried excel.exe /unregserver and /regserver with no improvement
I've checked the settings/folder options/file types for the XLS entry
and found nothing wrong.

Any suggestions on where the problem might be?

Brian Murphy

 

[Brian Murphy]

When I co-install different excel versions (I've done this many times
over the years), I generally don't have any trouble. Although which
version launches when double clicking a file seems to always be the
last version installed.

I had 2003 and 2007 installed, and things were ok. Then to do some
bug checking I installed 2000, and the problems started about that
time.

I tried the \"%1\ stuff and now excel starts and loads the file, but
I get a message saying that it can't find the file, even though it
opened it. I also still get multiple instances of excel.

If I do the \unregserver and /regserver trick, the Open thing says
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE" /e
Double clicking starts multiple excel's, loads no files, and produces
no messages
If I add %1 with no quotes
I get a Windows message that it can't find the file, giving the full
path and file name.
Excel also launches and I get series of message that a bunch of files
can't be opened, each one is one word of the full path name.
If I add "%1" with the quotes
I get the same Windows message that it can't find the file, but excel
launches and load the file. I still get multiple excel instances.

I think there's something somewhere in the registry that's causing
this. Something left over from the multiple versions I had installed.

If I had a clue as to what to look for, I could find it and delete it.

Brian

 

[Gord Dibben]

Try Tools>Options>General Uncheck "ignore other applications"


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Peter T]

Not obvious to me but maybe there's something amongst Jialiang Ge's comments
and links in this thread that might help

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/mi...c=1&q=peter-t+oldest+version#2dfba16d4ba71e96

If you haven't already, try "Repair" each version, oldest first.

Regards,
Peter T

 

[Brian Murphy]

Well, I've finally got it working right.
Here's a rundown of the last steps I used that fixed it.
But there might be others I did before this that are important because
I thought I already tried this sequence.

In excel do Tools/Options/General and uncheck Ignore other
applications.
In a DOS window do excel.exe /unregserver and /regserver
Now everything is back to normal.
Double clicking a file starts excel and opens the file. Hurray!
Double clicking another file opens it, too, in the already running
instance of excel. Double Hurray!

If I now put a check in the "Ignore other applications", double
clicking a file generates the string of message about not being able
to open a file that has a name that is a single word from the file
name I double clicked on. So I evidently need to have this option
unchecked. This tells me something is probably still not quite right,
but for now I'm not going to worry about it.

By the way. After all the uninstalling and repairing. Only Office
2003 is installed. All others are gone as far as I can tell (but you
never know).

Cheers,

Brian

 

[Brian Murphy]

I spoke too soon. There was still one problem.
If excel is not open, double clicking a multi word file name will open
okay.
But if excel is already open, I get the string of messages about not
finding a file with a single word from the file name.

It seems, so far that is, that I have been able to fix this.

After running excel /regserver, the OPEN entry in Folder Options
says:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE" /e

But after opening a few files in excel this invisibly got changed to
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE" /e %1
Strange, but true.

I think the %1 needs to have double quotes around it so I changed it
to
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\OFFICE11\EXCEL.EXE" /e "%1"

And now everything seems to be working.
I wonder why /regserver didn't put in the "%1"
and why excel put it on without double quotes.

I just checked this setting on several other computers
On a normal office 2007 only computer there is no %1, just the /e
On a normal office 2003 only computer there is no %1, just the /e
On a computer with 03 and 07 co-installed that works fine and has
never had any problems, with 03 as the default excel app, the Folder
Options dialog for the XLS extension has a button that says RESTORE in
place of the ADVANCED button. So I didn't mess with it.

Brian