EXCEL.exe has generated errors and will be closed by Windows

[Mike Fabrico]

I receive the following error periodically when I'm
closing (X'ing) out of a spreadsheet.

EXCEL.exe has generated errors and will be closed by
Windows. You will need to restart the program. An error
log is being created.

Does anyone know what causes this and what I can do to
correct this? I cannot view the log file either.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Even if you could review the log file, I bet it wouldn't help. (It surely
doesn't help most humans!)

But one of the things that excel does when you close it is update your
customized toolbar file (*.xlb).

With excel closed:

windows|start button|search
search for *.xlb
in hidden folders and files.

Rename all the *.xlb to *.xlbOLD.

Test it out by restarting excel and doing some stuff and closing excel.

If it worked, delete the *.xlbOLD files.

This means that any changes you've made to builtin toolbars is gone--but you can
recreate them at your leisure.

(When you've finished recreating those changes, find that *.xlb file and back it
up to a nice spot. If anything bad happens again, you just delete the bad *.xlb
and replace it with the backup.)