excel stops responding

[Dorian]

Here's the situation: I have a client running Windows XP
Pro, with Office 2000 (SP3). The client has an Excel
spreadsheet that she updates everyday. Yesterday when
she opened the file via File --> Open or the
RecentFileList at the bottom of the File menu, Excel
stopped responding. When she tried to close Excel, she
could not. I attempted to end task the application and
the process to no avail. When i tried to launch an
explorer window to view the text file that Error
Reporting creates, explorer.exe stops responding too.
When i try to shut the machine down to reboot, the
machine hangs (excel.exe is not terminating). The only
way to reboot is to do a hard shutdown.
The client is able to open the file if she browses to the
location, and double-clicks on it, but this is not a
prefered method due to the level at which the file is
nested in the directory structure. When i logon to the
machine, i am able to open the file by browsing to it,
and double-clicking, but get the same response if i use
File --> Open. Both the client and myself are able to
open and edit the file by all methods on other machines.
I have attempted a repair of the MS Office installation,
and a complete re-install. Neither has resolved the
problem. I have not deleted profiles (NTUSER.DAT) yet
since it seems to affect multiple users. If anyone has
any suggestions, i would be grateful.

Thank you,
:-D
Dorian Clinton

 

[Jan Karel Pieterse]

Hi Dorian,

See if this helps:


Try opening Excel without any addins or hidden workbooks:

Start, Run,
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /Unregserver

Quotes mandatory, Note you may have to change the path.

After that do:

Start, Run,
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /regserver


Something else to check for is a full TEMP folder:

In Windows 95/98 and ME

Delete all files in C:\Windows\Temp

In Windows NT/2000/XP

Find and Select C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\local settings\temp
and delete all files in there. Especially look for files with .emf
extension.

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
www.jkp-ads.com

 

[Dorian]

Thanks Jan. I will be keeping this info for later use.
It turns out that the PC was to blame. After much
research, i noticed that when attempting to connect to
the machine remotely (via VNC or just browsing
w/explorer), i would intermitantly receive connection
errors. After verifying all the physical connections
from the switch to the patch cable, we tried another
machine at that port, and did not have any problems. The
decision was made to re-image the machine, but this did
not resolve the problem. Another machine (with the same
image) was installed, and the client was able to
successfully open all excel files. My guess as to the
root cause... either a bad NIC, or possibly bad sectors
on the hard drive since re-imaging did not resolve the
problem. Anyway i appreciate your help, and have a nice
day.

:-D
Dorian Clinton

-----Original Message-----
Hi Dorian,

See if this helps:


Try opening Excel without any addins or hidden workbooks:

Start, Run,
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft

Office\Office\Excel.exe" /Unregserver

Quotes mandatory, Note you may have to change the path.

After that do:

Start, Run,
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft

Office\Office\Excel.exe" /regserver