Excel 97 (Win95) file opening 3 instances and in background

[LokiOfGameSlave]

Hello All,

A similar question / problem was posted by 7flip7 back on Aug. 21, 2002 (here is a link to that post -> thread68-342305 )

Whenever my user tries to open up this file, 3 or more instances of the file open, and always in the background never active. I have even tried copying the file and opening it on another system with a newer OS (NT) but even that does not work.

I have tried all of the suggestions posted for the above link ("Open in new window setting", Alternative Startup location.. \xlstart), but they were not the problem. Is there anyone that has seen this before and knows what the problem is?

TIA
-Loki

Pronunciation: 'lO-kE
Function: noun
Etymology: Old Norse
Definition: a Norse god who contrives evil and mischief for his fellow gods

 

[Wray69]

Loki,

What you need to do is go to Window/and choose one of the workbooks, like :3 and close the active file by clicking the X for the workbook not excel. Do this for all open workbooks but one, then save it. Next time it opens only one will open.

What happened is they went to Window/New (which opens another instance of that workbook) then saved it.

Hope this helps.

Regards,

Wray

 

[LokiOfGameSlave]

Okay, that worked on my test system (with WinNT). I will give it a shot on my users system and see if it resolves the issue.

Thanks a bunch Wray.

Pronunciation: 'lO-kE
Function: noun
Etymology: Old Norse
Definition: a Norse god who contrives evil and mischief for his fellow gods

 

[Dreamboat]

Loki: You said you tried everything in the thread that contains the link.

I gave the exact suggestion that Wray did in my first reply there....

Curious to see if this worked for you.

Anne Troy

http://www.TheOfficeExperts.com

Word and Excel Macros
Coming soon: wX

 

[LokiOfGameSlave]

I didn't quite "catch on" to what you had posted in the first link Dreamboat. Probably not enough coffee flowing through me at the time.

The suggestion worked on my NT Station, but I have yet to be able to get access to the users station. I should be able to get to it tonight or tomorrow. I will let you know if it works.

Pronunciation: 'lO-kE
Function: noun
Etymology: Old Norse
Definition: a Norse god who contrives evil and mischief for his fellow gods

 

[LokiOfGameSlave]

Well finally managed to get access to the users computer and did as suggested by the both of you. It didn't work.

So I went in to Tools>Options and selected "Ignore Other Applications" on the off chance there was something trying to impose itself on Excel (the user also gets an error on Excel startup saying something along the lines of "word.doc not found". After that I close the program and re-launched it. Holy Mother of God! Excel now decides it wants to try to open EVERY file on the users computer (even non-excel files). So the inevitable happens ... the computer crashes. *sigh*

The only way to get around Excel trying to open all of those files was for me to delete the Excel Shortcut, and create a new one that opens Excel in Safe Mode. But even then, I get an error saying "Couldn't find afe.xls" Click OK or Cancel. Obviously Excel is mistaking the /safe portion for a file. But that is MUCH better than it trying to open 5 billion files. :
The alternative startup location isn't set to \...\...\...\xlstart.

I've run a virus scan and a spyware scan on the computer and nothing came up.

/me is about ready to shoot the computer (and then the user).

Any other suggestions?

Pronunciation: 'lO-kE
Function: noun
Etymology: Old Norse
Definition: a Norse god who contrives evil and mischief for his fellow gods

 

[Dreamboat]

Loki: Have you trashed the registry key?

Go to hkey_current_user\software\microsoft\office\X.X\excel

Rename the "excel" folder to "oldexcel" and close the registry editor. Worst that can happen is you delete the new excel that gets created and rename oldexcel back to excel.

X.X:

8.0 is Excel 97
9.0 is 2000
10.0 is XP

Anne Troy

http://www.TheOfficeExperts.com

Word and Excel Macros
Coming soon: wX

 

[Dreamboat]

Make sure they don't have a bunch of files in the XLSTART too. That should be the FIRST thing to check.

Anne Troy

http://www.TheOfficeExperts.com

Word and Excel Macros
Coming soon: wX

 

[Wray69]

Hey Loki,

Im not sure what the problem is, the things taht you tried always work for me. Here is the only article I could find on the issue in the MSKB for 97;

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;136874

Maybe it will be some help.

Regards,

Wray

 

[LokiOfGameSlave]

Ok, thanks folks I will give those a try tonight.

Wray that article seems like a good start because the user DOES have WinFax installed on their computer and it was installed after Excel was.

I will keep you all posted.

Pronunciation: 'lO-kE
Function: noun
Etymology: Old Norse
Definition: a Norse god who contrives evil and mischief for his fellow gods

 

[LokiOfGameSlave]

The user was having a lot of problems with other things on the computer as well so I suggested that they take it in to a repair shop.

The shop fixed most of the problems ... one of them being the multi-doc problem.

What it was was the alternative startup location. BUT, the thing is ... I have my computer set up with an alternative startup location and it doesn't / didn't have any problems.

Mighty weird. Anyways, thanks to all for their help and suggestions with regards to this problem.

Cheers. Sorry for the late reply but I've been hella busy in RL. :
Pronunciation: 'lO-kE
Function: noun
Etymology: Old Norse
Definition: a Norse god who contrives evil and mischief for his fellow gods