The first thing I'd try...
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)
--- or ---
Close Excel and
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /unregserver
then
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /regserver
The /unregserver & /regserver stuff resets the windows registry to excel's
factory defaults.
If neither of them worked, then I think I'd use the task scheduler to start a
..vbs script that does what I want. It could find an already running instance of
excel or start a new one if excel isn't running.
Something like this:
'------------------
dim myXL
dim myWkbk
Dim XLWasRunning
xlwasrunning = true
On Error Resume Next
Set myXL = GetObject(, "Excel.Application")
If Err.Number = 429 Then
set myXL = createobject("excel.application")
xlwasrunning = false
end If
on error goto 0
myxl.visible = true 'nice for testing
set mywkbk = myxl.workbooks.open("C:\my documents\excel\book1.xls")
mywkbk.worksheets(1).range("a1").value = "Changed from VBS"
mywkbk.close true 'or false to not save changes
if xlwasrunning = false then
myxl.quit
end if
set mywkbk = nothing
Set myxl = nothing
'-------------------
Save it as a NiceName.VBS