Small problem or big problem? No workbook at startup

[Colleyville Alan]

I have been trying, rather unsuccessfully, to write an Excel macro. At
times it seemed the memory had been corrupted, or at least that Excel was
behaving oddly. I shut the computer down, let the hard drive come to a
complete stop, and booted back up. Upon entering excel, there is no
workbook present. If I select File|New, I get the familiar "Book1".

Is it possible that I screwed up a setting somewhere and there is a menu
choice to fix this? Is this a problem anyone here has faced?
Thanks

 

[Dave Peterson]

If it's an actual hardware problem, then I don't think you can fix it in excel!

But if it's excel that's causing the crash, some versions (xl2k and up) allow
you to do a "detect and repair". This option is under Help inside excel.

Maybe you could reinstall if you're using xl97.

And the first version with a builtin autorecovery option is xl2002. If you have
it enabled, then ever few minutes (user selectable), a copy of the workbook gets
saved.

If excel/windows crashes, then the next time you open excel, it'll notice this
saved copy and offer to open it.

You can get the same effect with Jan Karel Pieterse's addin:
Look for AutoSafe at:
http://www.bmsltd.co.uk/mvp

But I guess my real suggestion is to save more often--just in case!

 

[Colleyville Alan]

If it's an actual hardware problem, then I don't think you can fix it in excel!

But if it's excel that's causing the crash, some versions (xl2k and up) allow
you to do a "detect and repair". This option is under Help inside excel.

Maybe you could reinstall if you're using xl97.

I have tried reinstalling in with the "detect and repair" option, and then
rebooting. I still do not have a workbook open when Excel starts. Other
than that, it seems to behave normally. I cannot detect any option to avoid
opening a new book at startup. I find this baffling, but plan to do some
research. In the meantime, thanks for the link to the Excel MVP Page.

 

[Gord Dibben]

You could try this.........

Go to Start>Settings>Folder>Options>File Types. Scroll down to MS Excel
Worksheet. Then if running Win98 OS Edit> select "Open" and Edit.

If using WinXP OS you would scroll down to .XLS then "Advanced">Open>Edit.

In Command line the path might be similar to this....

"C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\EXCEL.EXE" /e

DELETE the <sp>/e if you want Book1 to open.

You must have the double quotes.

Below have "use DDE" checked and this in the DDE message box....[open("%1")]

Application should read "Excel"(no quotes)

Gord Dibben XL2002

 

[Colleyville Alan]

You could try this.........

Go to Start>Settings>Folder>Options>File Types. Scroll down to MS Excel
Worksheet. Then if running Win98 OS Edit> select "Open" and Edit.

If using WinXP OS you would scroll down to .XLS then "Advanced">Open>Edit.

In Command line the path might be similar to this....

"C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\EXCEL.EXE" /e

DELETE the <sp>/e if you want Book1 to open.

You must have the double quotes.

Below have "use DDE" checked and this in the DDE message box....[open("%1")]

Application should read "Excel"(no quotes)

Gord Dibben XL2002

I'll save this post since it might come in handy. For now, I found I was
missing my Personal.XLS in the startup folder. Don't know how it happened,
but when I restored it from a backup directory, the app works fine.

 

[Gord Dibben]

What Personal.xls has to do with Book1 opening is a mystery to me.

But, glad to see you're fixed up.

Gord

You could try this.........

Go to Start>Settings>Folder>Options>File Types. Scroll down to MS Excel
Worksheet. Then if running Win98 OS Edit> select "Open" and Edit.

If using WinXP OS you would scroll down to .XLS then "Advanced">Open>Edit.

In Command line the path might be similar to this....

"C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\EXCEL.EXE" /e

DELETE the <sp>/e if you want Book1 to open.

You must have the double quotes.

Below have "use DDE" checked and this in the DDE message box....[open("%1")]

Application should read "Excel"(no quotes)

Gord Dibben XL2002

I'll save this post since it might come in handy. For now, I found I was
missing my Personal.XLS in the startup folder. Don't know how it happened,
but when I restored it from a backup directory, the app works fine.

 

[Colleyville Alan]

What Personal.xls has to do with Book1 opening is a mystery to me.

But, glad to see you're fixed up.

A mystery to me as well. But once it was restored, we were back in
business. Maybe it is coincidence - computer types are famous for
superstitious behavior ("..I reboot, then light 3 incense sticks while
whistling the first 3 bars of "Ode to Bill Gates"...)