Excel won't start. Previously worked fine

[Don T.]

I've been running Windows Office XP SBE and yesterday Excel stopped working.
The other applications are fine. When I click on Excel if flashes for a
second and then disappears. Tried uninstalling and then installing. Tried
virus scans and hard drive checks/defragmentation and get the same result.

On an Office thread from 2005 someone suggested changing an Excel.xlb file
to Excel.abc. I tried to rename the file but it produced Excel.abc.xlb. I
couldn't get rid of the .xlb extension. Not sure if that would solve the
problem but need help on completing this fix. Other suggestions welcome too.

Any help would be appreciated. Thx.

 

[Nick Hodge]

Don

Try deleting the .xlb file. (It is a toolbar customization file, excel will
create a new one. all toolbar changes will be gone)

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
(e-mail address removed)
www.nickhodge.co.uk

 

[David McRitchie]

Did you close Excel when you tried to rename the toolbars
file (.xlb), seems you tried to do something other than rename
like editing a file and trying to use save as. The idea is remove
the file, so you could simply move the file to somewhere else,
and Excel will create a toolbars file when it starts up. If that was
not the problem then restore your toolbars file.

More information on toolbars in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/toolbars.htm

I kind of think that clearing out you Internet Explorer temporary
files might work, because I think if it were toolbars that you get
some type on indication as to the problem. More information
on getting Excel up again.

If they don't work then try starting Excel in Safe Mode, which
starts Excel without macros and addins (temporary)
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/slowresp.htm#reg

From Windows Start, Run
excel.exe /s

 

[David McRitchie]

and even if that was not the problem, it may take months to
recover extensive changes to toolbars, if there is no backup.
Renaming or moving to another directory is a lot safer.

"Nick Hodge" wrote ...

 

[Dave Peterson]

Chip Pearson has some notes on how to diagnose startup errors:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/StartupErrors.htm

And Jan Karel Pieterse has more notes:
http://www.jkp-ads.com/Articles/StartupProblems.asp

 

[Dave Peterson]

It sounds like you did things ok, but the results weren't what I'd expect.

When I'm deleting the files from the Temp folder, I show the files in detail
view, then sort by the last update column.

Then I can stay away from today's date and delete the files that were updated
yesterday or before. But I can't believe that having lots of files in the temp
folder (or deleting those files) would cause the trouble that you describe.

You don't store real files (like the .pst files from Outlook) in your Temp
folder, do you? That Temp folder should only be used for programs--or things
that you know you'll want to delete.

Maybe you can search for your .pst files to see if they're on your harddrive
somewhere--just not opened by outlook. I'd direct questions about Outlook to a
dedicated Outlook newsgroup, though.

As for excel, I read where you said that you tried reinstalling excel. I think
I'd back up all my important files and then remove office (via the control
panel, add/remove programs), then try reinstalling again.

But as an aside, I've never lost any data when I've reinstalled office.

Sorry things didn't go as intended. If you find the solution, you may want to
post back. Then google will have it for others.