Excel toolbar customization

[Griffinspc]

I have modified my Excel toolbars many times with no problem however on this
new machine at work with Office 2003 and all service packs, etc., the changes
I make are not retained when i close and open Excel. I've tried the Detect &
Repair and looked for any Office updates and all are current. Help.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Customized changes to to menus and toolbars are saved in Excel11.xlb

Usual path is

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel

Your path may differ

Maybe you don't have permission to save to that folder

Search for Excell11.xlb using Windows search.

When found, re-name to Excel11.OLD

Restart Excel and make some changes. Excel will create a new *.xlb file

Double-click to open it. Does this one have your changes?


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Griffinspc]

Thanks for the reply. Interesting. I have no xlb file on this machine at all.

 

[Gord Dibben]

You must have one.

In My Computer>Tools>Folder Options>View do you have "hide extensions for
known file types" checkmarked.

Uncheck and try a search for *.xlb


Gord

 

[Griffinspc]

I do have one. Weird when searching for either the full name or *.xlb it
doesn't find it but navigating to it does so with that I renamed it OLD and
made some obvious changes and closed Excel. I waited and opened it and had a
brief glimpse of my changes; Close and Save As in text so it would be easy to
spot and then the Toolbar flashed and went back to the default. But if I open
the new Excel11.xlb file it has my changes. Color me stumped.

 

[Dave Peterson]

You haven't found all of them yet.

Maybe this will help:

Close excel

Windows Start button|Run
type:
CMD
(to get to the Command prompt)

C:
(to get to the C: drive--change this to the drive that excel is installed on)

cd\
(to get to the root directory)

dir *.xlb /s

The /s says to search subfolders, too.

Make a note of the locations of the found files and then delete those files.

Then try modifying your toolbar again, close excel and reopen to see if the
changes are still there.

 

[Griffinspc]

Only one found in the command line search in the same location. I deleted it
again and made a few changes to the toolbar, closed excel. checked the xlb
file and the toolbar shows my changes. Closed it and opened Excel and no
changes. It seemed logical that there was a 2nd xbl file but no luck. So
where is my Excel pointing?

Would it do me any good to uninstall Excel and reinstall or is this a
registry issue so the new install will be looking at the same file? I've had
to delete the normal.dot file before in Word and had noting like this happen.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Strange doin's

Maybe a permissions issue?

Before a re-install of Office try a re-register of Excel.

Close Excel first and On the Windows Taskbar

1) Start>Run "excel.exe /unregserver"(no quotes)>OK.
2) Start>Run "excel.exe /regserver"(no quotes)>OK.

See the space between exe and /regserver

You might have to designate a full path to excel.exe.

In that case Start>Run "C:\yourpath\excel.exe" /regserver(quotes
required)>OK.

Have your CD ready just in case you are asked for it.


Gord

 

[Dave Peterson]

Reinstalling excel won't help.

*.xlb is one of the files that excel knows not to destroy when you
uninstall/reinstall.

I'm betting that you still haven't found all of them yet.

Search again and delete the ones you find.

But then use windows search for a folder named XLStart (depending on your
upgrade path, you may have multiple XLStart folders, too!).

Then open those folders to see if you have *.xlb files in any of those.

 

[Griffinspc]

OK, tried both Gord's and Dave's last suggestions. No luck with either. It
seems weirder and weirder. I found one other XLSTART folder but it was empty
and I'm obviously stumped.

 

[Dave Peterson]

Except for looking again, I'm out of suggestions.

OK, tried both Gord's and Dave's last suggestions. No luck with either. It
seems weirder and weirder. I found one other XLSTART folder but it was empty
and I'm obviously stumped.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Likewise for me.

You cannot run Excel without an *.xlb file


Gord

 

[Dave Peterson]

Just to add...

I closed excel, deleted my *.xlb and restarted excel. Excel started ok.

But when I closed excel, that *.xlb file got created--and I didn't modify any
toolbar.

======
To the OP.

Try looking this way:
Close excel
Windows start button|Run
type this and hit enter:
%appdata%

This should take you to something like:
C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data

Now open the Microsoft folder, then the Excel folder.
C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel

Look for *.xlb (and delete any you find)

And then look in the XLStart folder.
Delete any *.xlb files you find there.

===========
If you have a *.xlb file in your xlstart folder, then you'll see the problem you
describe. The "real" toolbar is, er, should not be in the XLStart folder.

When excel starts, you'll see the "real" toolbar (if your eyes are good
enough!). But the *.xlb file in XLStart will be loaded automatically--and it'll
replace the "real" version.

Make changes and close excel. The *.xlb file that gets updated is the "real"
version. But the next time you open excel, you'll see the (not updated) version
from XLStart.

 

[Gord Dibben]

That's what I meant.........Excel will re-create one<g>


Gord

 

[Griffinspc]

OK, wanted to let you guys know I fixed it and how. Having tried all the
suggesteions you made which I appreciated, I finally did uninstall Excel and
re-installed it. That in itself seemed to be a failure but one last time I
also did a detect and repair immediately after the install and told it to
reset everythig to default and not to recreate shortcuts. I had done this
before but not after a reinstall. This time it worked. My cutomized toolbars
are sticking. What a pain this was.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Thanks for the posting your particular solution.

Too bad you had to go through all that.


Gord

OK, wanted to let you guys know I fixed it and how. Having tried all the
suggesteions you made which I appreciated, I finally did uninstall Excel and
re-installed it. That in itself seemed to be a failure but one last time I
also did a detect and repair immediately after the install and told it to
reset everythig to default and not to recreate shortcuts. I had done this
before but not after a reinstall. This time it worked. My cutomized toolbars
are sticking. What a pain this was.