Strange file behavior

[Terry von Gease]

Assume Excel 2002 on XP Pro.

All of a sudden for no apparent reason, when I double click on an .xls file
in explorer et. al. and Excel runs as you'd expect but the file double
clicked is not opened and Excel is in a gray state with no open workbook. I
can open files just fine with the File menu, with the previous file list, I
can even drag and drop an .xls file from explorer to the open Excel and it
works perfectly.

It used to work just fine and then it just stopped.

I tried rebooting; repairing Excel, whatever that does; reinstalling Excel;
I tried recovering windows to a previous, happier time. Nada.

Does anyone have a clue here? It there some obscure parameter somewhere that
needs a kick in the ass? Incantations to some lesser god or another? Human
sacrifice? What?

Try hard not to ask if the file extension is properly aligned with Excel, I
said that it runs Excel, just no file is actually opened.

--
Terry

"I said I never had much use for one,
I never said I didn't know how to use one."
M. Quigley

 

[Dave Peterson]

Maybe it's just off the viewable screen:
Window|Arrange|tiled

Or maybe it's not really staying open.
Hit alt-f11 to get to the VBE after you try opening the problem file.
hit ctrl-R to see the project explorer.

Do you see your workbook name in that windows explorer like list?
something like: VBAProject (yourworkbookname.xls)

If you don't see that, then your workbook isn't opening (or staying open).

Start Excel in safe mode
Windows Start Button|Run
Excel /s

open your file

And see if you notice a difference. If you do, maybe you have a macro running
that's checking something and closing because it didn't like what it found out.

 

[Terry von Gease]

Thanks for the prompt response.

Maybe it's just off the viewable screen:
Window|Arrange|tiled

Nope, not that.

Or maybe it's not really staying open.

It's not getting open to not stay open.If it were it would ask about macros.
It doesn't. The macro security is set to the middle one, it should ask. It
never gets that far.

Hit alt-f11 to get to the VBE after you try opening the problem file.
hit ctrl-R to see the project explorer.

Do you see your workbook name in that windows explorer like list?
something like: VBAProject (yourworkbookname.xls)

Nope. Trouble is that there is no workbook open. Nothing in the VBA project
explorer, as in absolutely blank. All the menu entrees that are disabled
until there's a visible worksheet are grayed out.

If you don't see that, then your workbook isn't opening (or staying open).

Isn't opening. It's not just one workbook, it's ANY workbook. Even if Excel
is up and running with an actual real-live workbook, double clicking an .xls
file just brings up another empty edition of Excel rather than adding the
double-clicked file to the open instance. Which it used to do until all of
this.

Start Excel in safe mode

You have me there. Safe mode? You mean macro security set to high? If so,
it makes no difference. I never gets that far. Excel gets lit off and then
drops the ball long before it ever gets around to carping about macros.

Windows Start Button|Run
Excel /s

open your file

And see if you notice a difference. If you do, maybe you have a macro running
that's checking something and closing because it didn't like what it found

out.

No macros, no nothing. There's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in Excel. No workbook, no
nothing.

To say that this is exasperating is a study in understatement.

--
Terry

"I said I never had much use for one,
I never said I didn't know how to use one."
M. Quigley

 

[Pat Garard]

Terry,
!!SOMETHING!! has changed !!!!
Cast your mind back - Windows Update
Office Update
Software Install
Something.....
What is it??????
We are as FRUSTRATED as are you!!!!
--
Hope this helps!

Pat Garard
Australia
apgarardATbigpondDOTnetDOTau

"One look is worth a thousand rumours."
Wen Hou, Warring States Period.

"Look twice!"
Pat Garard, 2003.

Thanks for the prompt response.

Maybe it's just off the viewable screen:
Window|Arrange|tiled

Nope, not that.

Or maybe it's not really staying open.

It's not getting open to not stay open.If it were it would ask about macros.
It doesn't. The macro security is set to the middle one, it should ask. It
never gets that far.

Hit alt-f11 to get to the VBE after you try opening the problem file.
hit ctrl-R to see the project explorer.

Do you see your workbook name in that windows explorer like list?
something like: VBAProject (yourworkbookname.xls)

Nope. Trouble is that there is no workbook open. Nothing in the VBA project
explorer, as in absolutely blank. All the menu entrees that are disabled
until there's a visible worksheet are grayed out.

If you don't see that, then your workbook isn't opening (or staying

open).

Isn't opening. It's not just one workbook, it's ANY workbook. Even if Excel
is up and running with an actual real-live workbook, double clicking an ..xls
file just brings up another empty edition of Excel rather than adding the
double-clicked file to the open instance. Which it used to do until all of
this.

Start Excel in safe mode

You have me there. Safe mode? You mean macro security set to high? If so,
it makes no difference. I never gets that far. Excel gets lit off and then
drops the ball long before it ever gets around to carping about macros.

Windows Start Button|Run
Excel /s

open your file

And see if you notice a difference. If you do, maybe you have a macro running
that's checking something and closing because it didn't like what it

found
out.

No macros, no nothing. There's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in Excel. No workbook, no
nothing.

To say that this is exasperating is a study in understatement.

--
Terry

"I said I never had much use for one,
I never said I didn't know how to use one."
M. Quigley
and

it

somewhere

 

[Dave Peterson]

Some people have reported error messages when they double click on a file in
Windows Explorer--cannot find <<filename here>>.

And the filename is taken from the path & filename separated by the embedded
spaces. But I didn't see any reference to error messages in your original post.

But you may want to try one of these, they sometimes help:

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.

An alternative might be to do:
Try Tools|Options|General|Ignore other applications (uncheck it)

 

[Terry von Gease]

Some people have reported error messages when they double click on a file in
Windows Explorer--cannot find <<filename here>>.

And the filename is taken from the path & filename separated by the embedded
spaces. But I didn't see any reference to error messages in your original post.

But you may want to try one of these, they sometimes help:

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.

No help there.

An alternative might be to do:
Try Tools|Options|General|Ignore other applications (uncheck it)

THAT did the trick. I fervently hope that there's an explanation
forthcoming. I quiver with anticipation at receipt of same. Please...

Thanks to all nonetheless...

--
Terry

"I said I never had much use for one,
I never said I didn't know how to use one."
M. Quigley

 

[Jim Carlock]

Try to copy the file to a short pathed folder.

IE if it's installed in

C:\Documents and Settings\UserName\My Documents\blah blah blah\

Drag it to a folder named:

C:\MyXLS\

and then try to open from that location.

That will tell you two things. If you get the copy to work, the
file is copieable and some disk corruption can be eliminated. It doesn't
guarantee that the file isn't corrupted but it eliminates certain types of
corruption that might exist (File Allocation Table pointers - These
types of problems seem to have become less common with NTFS
but they do happen every so often).

It also puts it into a short path name folder. So if there's a problem with
path name lengths, then it should open right up in the short path name
folder.

Hope that helps.

--
Jim Carlock
http://www.microcosmotalk.com
Feel free to post back to the newsgroup!

Thanks for the prompt response.

Maybe it's just off the viewable screen:
Window|Arrange|tiled

Nope, not that.

Or maybe it's not really staying open.

It's not getting open to not stay open.If it were it would ask about macros.
It doesn't. The macro security is set to the middle one, it should ask. It
never gets that far.

Hit alt-f11 to get to the VBE after you try opening the problem file.
hit ctrl-R to see the project explorer.

Do you see your workbook name in that windows explorer like list?
something like: VBAProject (yourworkbookname.xls)

Nope. Trouble is that there is no workbook open. Nothing in the VBA project
explorer, as in absolutely blank. All the menu entrees that are disabled
until there's a visible worksheet are grayed out.

If you don't see that, then your workbook isn't opening (or staying

open).

Isn't opening. It's not just one workbook, it's ANY workbook. Even if Excel
is up and running with an actual real-live workbook, double clicking an ..xls
file just brings up another empty edition of Excel rather than adding the
double-clicked file to the open instance. Which it used to do until all of
this.

Start Excel in safe mode

You have me there. Safe mode? You mean macro security set to high? If so,
it makes no difference. I never gets that far. Excel gets lit off and then
drops the ball long before it ever gets around to carping about macros.

Windows Start Button|Run
Excel /s

open your file

And see if you notice a difference. If you do, maybe you have a macro running
that's checking something and closing because it didn't like what it

found
out.

No macros, no nothing. There's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in Excel. No workbook, no
nothing.

To say that this is exasperating is a study in understatement.

--
Terry

"I said I never had much use for one,
I never said I didn't know how to use one."
M. Quigley
and

it

somewhere

 

[Dave Peterson]

Just a guess, but with that box checked, you told excel to ignore other
applications. I consider Windows Explorer an application (well, kind of in a
general sense).

So I'm not really surprised that if I tell xl to ignore something, it does.



Terry von Gease wrote:

 

[Terry von Gease]

Just a guess, but with that box checked, you told excel to ignore other
applications. I consider Windows Explorer an application (well, kind of in a
general sense).

So I'm not really surprised that if I tell xl to ignore something, it

does.


That's a little thin but it's all I have. I can't state authoritatively
whether or not this box was checked in the past, only that I've never
checked or unchecked it in the past. Perhaps in a frenzy of something it
ended up changing states.

What is the normal state of that box? Normal being what most people use and,
I assume, only change it if they have an actual reason to do so.

Thanks again.

--
Terry

"I said I never had much use for one,
I never said I didn't know how to use one."
M. Quigley

 

[Dave Peterson]

I've always left it unchecked. But (according to some), I may not represent
"normal" <bg>.

(I would assume by the posts of how to fix this, it's normally unchecked.)

 

[Tom Ogilvy]

Ignore Other applications means to ignore DDE calls.

The double click approach in explorer uses DDE by default.

 

[Terry von Gease]

Thanks for the definitve answer. All is explained.

--
Terry

"I said I never had much use for one,
I never said I didn't know how to use one."
M. Quigley

Ignore Other applications means to ignore DDE calls.

The double click approach in explorer uses DDE by default.

--
Regards,
Tom Ogilvy

I've always left it unchecked. But (according to some), I may not represent
"normal" <bg>.

(I would assume by the posts of how to fix this, it's normally unchecked.)

kind

of

use

 

[njohn]

Check out this Q Article.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304424&Product=xlw2K