format Excel to open in particular drive/file

[Jeanne]

I formatted the wrong box for opening Excel in. Now it tries to open all
files into Excel when I try to open Excel. I have to crtl alt delete to stop
the monster. I tried reinstalling the program to no avail.

 

[Dave Peterson]

My guess is that you changed the entry here:
Tools|Options|General tab|"At startup, open all files in:"
(xl2003 menus)

If you remember what you typed into that box, you can use windows explorer to
rename that folder (just temporarily).

Then open excel
change that entry (most people leave it empty)

Then back to windows explorer and change the folder name back to what it should
be.

==========
If you don't know the name of the folder, you can make a change to the registry:

If you're comfortable changing the registry...

Windows start button|Run|Regedit

Traverse to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\Options
under: AltStartup

And delete that key.

(11.0 means xl2003, 10.0 means xl2002, etc)

But be careful. Since you're working in the registry, you may want to back
it up before you do any changes. (You don't get a confirmation prompt when
you make changes here!)