Excel crashes trying to open a file in SYLK format

[DPotter]

I tried to open a .txt file a perl script had created. I recieved the
error message SYLK: file format is not valid. Then Excel crashed. I
was asked if I wanted to send in an error report to Microsoft and I
declined. When I tried to reboot Excel it attempted to open the bad
..txt file again (without my prompting) and gave the same error message
before crashing. I have attempted rebooting the computer in hopes that
Excel would forget about the .txt file but to no avail. How can I
remove the guilty file from Excel's search path.

 

[JE McGimpsey]

I tried to open a .txt file a perl script had created. I recieved the
error message SYLK: file format is not valid. Then Excel crashed. I
was asked if I wanted to send in an error report to Microsoft and I
declined. When I tried to reboot Excel it attempted to open the bad
.txt file again (without my prompting) and gave the same error message
before crashing. I have attempted rebooting the computer in hopes that
Excel would forget about the .txt file but to no avail. How can I
remove the guilty file from Excel's search path.

The problem is that the first two characters of your text file are "ID".
This identifies the text file as a SYLK (SYmbolic LinK) file - one of
the early "universal" spreadsheet interchange formats. By using
File/Open, XL tries to be smart and open the SYLK file, but crashes when
the rest of the file is in the wrong format (it shouldn't do that, of
course, but...)

XL then tries to recover what it lost before the crash, which is giving
you the loop.

To stop the loop, start XL while holding the shift key down (bypassing
the recovery step). Let it open, then quit. You should be able to start
up normally after that.

To open your .txt file, Choose Data/Get External Data/Import Text
File... instead of File/Open, and use the Text Import wizard.

 

[DPotter]

Thank you so much for both explaining why I am getting the hang up and
how to get around it. Your suggestion worked like a dream!