cannot open excel file

[Katherine Coombs]

Is it giving him a specific error message? Is it even trying to launch
Excel when he double-clicks on the file? Is he trying to open it from
Outlook (ie as an attachment) or from his hard-drive?

Within Windows Explorer ask him to go to Tools-->Folder Options and on the
View tab uncheck the box against "Hide file extensions for known file
types". Then look at the file and see if it has the xls file extension? If
so can you check that xls is associated with Excel on his machine?

 

[Bob]

I have an excel file that originated in excel 97. I opened it up in excel
2002. I emailed it to a few people and some can open it and some can't.
One person that can't open it has excel 97. the Save as Type: is Microsoft
Excel 97-2002 &5.0 /95 Workbook (*.xls). Any ideas as to why he cannot
open the file. The icon next to the file isn't an excel file.

 

[Bob]

I believe he is trying to open it from outlook as an attachment. He is
going to call me tomorrow night and I will try to get it to open. I
suggested to him that he save it to his hard drive and then right click the
file and choose open with and point to excel to open the file.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Sometimes files get hosed in the ether. If the file gets corrupted a second
time, I'll zip it and email that zip file.

Can that user open any excel files from any attachment? If yes, then I'd just
resend.

If no, I think I'd tell him to close excel and try one of these:

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.

An alternative might be to do:
Try Tools|Options|General|Ignore other applications (uncheck it)