excel file association (double click) not working !

[Nick Calladine]

Hi

I have a friend who has a windows XP Home machine with excel 2003

Recently the ability to double click an excel file and it open up excel and
its contents have failed.

When the file is double clicked (xls) excel will open with no blank workbook
or the file selected.

If i manually open excel up and open the file this works fine.

I presume it some registry or association corruption !

Can anyone advise me if there is a registry setting to check out or way of
setting up the file assocation .

Unfortuantely my friend is not very computer litrerate and is quite a
distance a way so I am basically working via a remote connection as I am
unable to travel to deinstall / reinstall for him easily.

Many thanks

Nick C

 

[Dave Peterson]

Sometimes one of these works:

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.

 

[Nick Calladine]

Hi Dave thanks for the reply, does this make any more sense..

further to this if any one reads it

The pc has norton internet security (firewall and virus scanner) so it looks
like the virus scanner grabs hold of the file first before excel... and that
what is causing the problem

I used the tools > options > general > ignore other application > off

But is there a proper fix .. or it a professional workaround
if any one knows and can post details of the fix .. be very gratefull

thanks

 

[Dave Peterson]

I don't use Norton, so I can't guess about that. But I think the other
suggestions were at least "semi-professional" <vbg>.