File & Help only active menu items

[Guest]

One of our users has caused Excel 2003 to only have menu items File and Help
active all the other menu items are grayed out. We've rebooted, run detect &
repair and we've searched Google but have not found anything helpful. This
happens on old as well as new spreadsheets. Currently he's running Excel in
safe mode (Excel.exe /s). Next I'm planning on uninstalling all of Office
2003 and stripping Office out of the registry after that. I'd rather not,
any suggestions to fix the grayed out menu items?

 

[Nick Hodge]

I would try a few things

1) Check there are no add-ins or workbook_open() code in the personal.xls
2) Reset the active toolbars (Right-click the toolbars and select customise,
select the toolbars in the list and hit reset)
3) Check there is no protection on (I doubt this one as that wouldn't lock
whole menu options)
4) Search for a hidden file with an xlb extension (*.xlb) and move it,
re-start Excel and if it works delete the old one. Excel will have made a
new one
5) Grill the user to see if they have loaded anything on the machine or any
update?

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
(e-mail address removed)
www.nickhodge.co.uk

 

[Gord Dibben]

You must have an *.xlb file if you have ever opened Excel and closed it.

Make sure under My Computer>Tools>Folder Options>View you are set to "Show
hidden files and folders" and unchecked "Hide extensions for know file types"

Thern do the search for *.xlb

Same for Personal.xls


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

Nick,
I tied your 4 suggestions.
1) Searched the hard drive and did not find personal.xls.
2) Can only use Excel in safe mode. Customize is grayed out.
3) Protection is off
4) *.xlb file not fould on C:\
5) Grilled - user is unaware of any recently installed software or hardware
installs.

Any other suggestions?
Anyone else?

thx,
Dave

 

[Gord Dibben]

You would not necessarily have a Personal.xls if you have never recorded a macro
and used Personal Macro Workbook for storage of that macro.

You will have an *.xlb file.

Open Excel and make some small change to a menu or Toolbar.

Close Excel then go looking for *.xlb file.

Generally found in

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

If on a network you may have to go looking somewhere else.


Gord

 

[Gord Dibben]

Very strange having no *.xlb file but glad you're sorted.

Now that you've re-installed Excel have you looked for the *.xlb file?

Gord

Gord,
Thanks for your responses.

I did a search and neither file was located.

Problem solved.
I uninstalled excel and reinstalled excel. Then all the menu items were
active and available. I had the user reboot and we tried excel again. All
the menu items were still available and active.

Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP