sudden problem opening excel - machine wants to open every Office document

[hobcoe74]

Hello, I have to set the stage for this one, sorry: I use an imac g5
with, OX 10.4.3, office 2004 for teachers and students, and have for
months without any kind of particular problem. Suddenly, for no reason
I can think of or discern, when I attempt to open Excel, or an xls
file, excel opens, but then immediately gets caught in some kind of
loop that appears to be forcing it to attempt to open every office
document (at least xls and doc files) on my computer, one right after
the other. When it opens an xls file, it loads on top (stacked
windows) of the previous ones. When it is a doc file, it gives me a
window where it states "......doc file format is not valid" with a blue
OK button. I have to push the button to get out of the window, and
before you can do anything, it goes to the next file to open, and the
process repeats itself, either stacking another open xls sheet or
giving me the file format not valid window message. I have to force
quit Excel to get out of the thing, as I really don't want to go
through the hundreds of files in order to find out what happens at the
end of this rainbow. I have rebooted, I have reinstalled, nothing
changes. By the way, neither Word nor Power Point show the same
symptoms, they appear to work just fine.

The impression I have is (just gut feel, I don't have any experience in
this area) there is a virus/macro that has gotten into my system that
takes over Excel when it first opens, to what end I don't know. If so,
clearly this is a scary situation for a Mac OS user! I religiously use
Virex 7.2, never open the dangerous emails, etc. I have scanned my
computer with the latests DAT, nothing shows up.

Does anyone have any ideas? I do have an email support request into
MicroSoft, but thought I would try this as well. If I am doing
something really stupid, or there is a very simple answer and fix,
please do not hesitate to let me know! thanks, hdc

 

[JE McGimpsey]

Suddenly, for no reason I can think of or discern, when I attempt to
open Excel, or an xls file, excel opens, but then immediately gets
caught in some kind of loop that appears to be forcing it to attempt
to open every office document (at least xls and doc files) on my
computer, one right after the other.

Did you set the "Alternate startup file location" (Preferences/General)
to your documents folder, by any chance?

XL will attempt to open any file in the

~:Applications:Microsoft Office 2004:Office:Startup:Excel:

folder, or any file in the alternate startup file folder.

 

[hobcoe74]

I think PROBLEM SOLVED - Yes, guilty, did something sort of like that,
thought I was doing something else, did it a couple of days ago and
just last night went to reuse Excel for the first time and the problem
showed up. I didn't know exactly where to go look for these things
without being actually able to use the "preferences" command in the
drop down menu, and I couldn't because Excel never stopped cycling,
however your information made me brave enough to start looking around
for the file that would contain the default and alternate start-up
locations, and I found it in a plist in one of the user application
libraries, edited it to change the folder to an empty one so the thing
would start up, etc. I think this has fixed it, and I thank you a
hundred fold. I guess I did do something but because there was the
delay before I used it again, I didn't connect the two, and I suppose I
never dreamed Excel would try to open every file in there. Never
again. Thanks a bunch.