File Opening Trouble

[JGreg7]

When I double click on an Excel file to open it, I get a series of messages
that files can not be found as follows:

Personal.xls is locked…
C:\My.xls cannot be found….
C:\Documents.xls cannot be found….
C:\Documents.xls cannot be found….
C:\and.xls cannot be found….
C:\Settings.xls cannot be found….etc.

It seems to be trying to open each word in the directory path as a separate
file. The separation seems to occur whenever it reaches a space or a slash
in the file path. This only happens with Excel files. All other files work
normally. Opening the file in Excel using the menu file/open…. works
normally.

Any ideas what could be causing this?

(Windows XP SP2, Office 2003)

 

[Dave Peterson]

Sometimes one of these works when you're having trouble with double clicking on
the file in windows explorer:

Tools|Options|General|Ignore other applications (uncheck it)
(xl2003 menus)

--- or ---

Close Excel and
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /unregserver
then
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /regserver

The /unregserver & /regserver stuff resets some of the windows registry to
excel's factory defaults.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Easiest fix is...............

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(quotes
required)>OK.

If no joy with that, post back and we can propose another fix.


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[JGreg7]

The "unregserver / regserver" procedure worked, thank you for your response.

Excel works normally now.

 

[WJason]

I'm having this same problem. Running Excel 2003 sp2. When opening a .tsv
file I get this same series of errors. I've tried the unregister/reregister
suggestion but Excel still can't open .tsv files. Any other suggestions?

Jason

 

[Chip Pearson]

What is a TSV file? Tab separated values? If so, change the file's
extension from tsv to txt and use Excel's import text file tool.

Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft Most Valuable Professional
Excel Product Group, 1998 - 2009
Pearson Software Consulting, LLC
www.cpearson.com
(email on web site)

 

[WJason]

Open Folder Options from the Control Panel. Click the [File Types] tab and
scroll down to the TSV entry. Click the [Advanced] button. For each action
listed, highlight to select it and then click [Edit] to edit it. Scroll to
the end of the "Application used to perform action" field and place
double-quote (") marks around %1 at the end of the entry.

I still don't understand why some workstations can open TSV files without
this modification and some cannot (all running XP Pro,sp3 and MSO2003sp3);
but the solution worked for me.

 

[WJason]

TSV = Tab Separated Values

 

[Roger]

Sorry but none of these seem to work. I have posts under msg
"Open excel files" and "Can't open an excel file (have......"

At this point I suspect my problem can be traced to a botched removal of
Office 2007 and editing the registry per instructions from MS at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928218

After removing all traces of Office 2007 and 2003 I could find I did fresh
install of 2003 and have installed all updates and compatability pack
available but I either can not open an .XLS file with dbl click or have to
put up with three error messages.

TO ALL who respond. I will try your suggestions and only make another post
when something works.