Excel Opens in Strange Mode

[Tom Lake]

I just installed Excel 2007 on Vista Ultimate. About half the time when I
try to open Excel, it opens with no grid, no icons at all, no menus, nothing
except the word Ready in the upper left corner of a very thin colored bar
(not even a title bar). I can't do anything with it except close it from
the Taskbar. Other times it loads normally. What is causing this? I've
tried uninstalling and reinstalling with no difference. This is driving me
bonkers! Access, Word, PowerPoint all work normally.

Please help! Thank you.

Tom Lake

 

[Warren_FIrman]

I also have Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 Professional. I also have this
strange problem and am now looking for a solution. This also only happens to
me in Excel.

 

[Harlan Grove]

I just installed Excel 2007 on Vista Ultimate. About half the
time when I try to open Excel, it opens with no grid, no icons
at all, no menus, nothing except the word Ready in the upper
left corner of a very thin colored bar (not even a title bar).

....

Can you close Excel by clicking on that Ready then pressing the key
combination [Alt]+[F4]? If so, click on Ready and press the key
combination [Alt]+[Spacebar] then press X.

I don't have any version of Vista, but I suspect it's placing a
nonmaximized Excel application window mostly above the upper edge of
your physical monitor with just the Status Bar showing. I have no idea
whether Vista provides logical/virtual monitors larger than the
physical monitor like some Linux window managers do, but what you
describe sounds a lot like that.

 

[CraiginNJ]

No, that's not the problem. I see the problem too. The only control
I have over that gray "ready" window is to use the taskbar entry to
close it. Maximizing or Restoring it has no benefit. It seems to
happen about half the time. There doesn't seem any way to get any
menu or title bar or grid to appear.

Sometimes when I open my Excel 2002 instead of my Excel 2007 I see the
same effect, but it also has a title bar saying "Preview: Page
1818530 of 1818531". The Ready word follows in the gray window space
just under that title bar. Is this a clue to anything?

The problem occurs about half the times open files. It seemed to
start about th time of yesterday's security updates to Office, but I
was also playing with other things at the time, too, so I can't point
a finger at anything.

Craig in NJ

I just installedExcel2007 onVistaUltimate. About half the
time when I try to openExcel, it opens with no grid, no icons
at all, no menus, nothing except the word Ready in the upper
left corner of a very thin colored bar (not even a title bar).

...

Can you closeExcelby clicking on that Ready then pressing the key
combination [Alt]+[F4]? If so, click on Ready and press the key
combination [Alt]+[Spacebar] then press X.

I don't have any version ofVista, but I suspect it's placing a
nonmaximizedExcelapplication window mostly above the upper edge of
your physical monitor with just the Status Bar showing. I have no idea
whetherVistaprovides logical/virtual monitors larger than the
physical monitor like some Linux window managers do, but what you
describe sounds a lot like that.