Fixing Startup problems

Unfortunately, many Excel users sometimes start experiencing problems with their Excel: File not found errors, compile errors, GPF's, Excel refusing to load, files which do not open, etcetera.

This is a list of things-to-try when Excel exhibits problems.

Content

• Diagnostic tools
• Windows 10 related problems
• Startup problems or odd behaviour
• Opening Files From Desktop Or Explorer Fails
• Problems Caused by Anti Virus Software
• Problems caused by Temporary Files
• Problems Caused by Disabled Files
• Other Resources

Diagnostic tools

Microsoft have created a tool that searches your Office installations for known problems. It is called The Office Configuration Analyzer Tool (OffCAT).

• Where is the download?

You can download and install OffCAT v1.2 from the Microsoft Download site. You can either extract the files from OffCAT.zip or you can run the installer using OffCAT.msi. We recommend using OffCAT.msi because it contains system requirement checks that ensure OffCAT will properly function on your computer.

• What is the target audience for OffCAT?

OffCAT is designed to be used by anyone that has Office installed on their computer. This includes home users, small business people, Help Desk professionals, Microsoft support engineers, and IT administrators. Microsoft expects everyone to have the skillset required to follow the directions provided in the list of detected issues. However, the Configuration Details report is mostly aimed at moderate to advanced users that can understand information in the registry, event logs, Windows services and other places in Windows outside of the Office applications.

Windows 10 related problems

With Windows 10 many problems have been reported in the newsgroups and fora regarding Office. Microsoft has written an elaborate article on the known issues and their possible resolutions here: Known issues with Office and Windows 10

Excel shows errors during startup or behaves odd

Open Excel in Safe mode

Start, Run,
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /Safe

Tip: You can also start Excel in safe mode by holding down the control key whilst you double-click the Excel icon.

The safe switch ensures Excel starts without opening any addins or using your menu customisations. If this works, chances are that your toolbar customisation file is corrupt. Locate all files with extension .xlb and rename the extension(s) to something like .old
Now try and start Excel again.

In Windows, the xlb file is found by entering this into the Windows Explorer address bar and pressing the Enter key:

%AppData%\Microsoft\Excel

Try opening Excel without any addins or hidden workbooks

Use the Automation switch to start Excel without loading addins or workbooks from the XLSTART folder:

Click Start, Run,
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /Automation
(Quotes mandatory, Note you may have to change the path)

If your error disappears, either an add-in or a (hidden) workbook that is loaded upon Excel's start bothers you.

Locate the offending file using the following steps:

Excel Add-ins.

1. Click the File tab and select Options.
2. Click the Add-ins tab
3. In the dropdown near the bottom, select "Excel Add-ins" and click Go.

4. Note which are checked
5. Uncheck one
6. Restart XL
7. If no error, you've found the one causing the problem

Com Addins

Another type of addins are COM addins.

1. Click the File tab and select Excel Options.
2. Click the Add-ins tab
3. In the dropdown near the bottom, select "COM Add-ins" and click Go
4. Uncheck the first checked COM add-in and then reboot Excel and verify if your problem goes away.
5. Repeat from step 1 if the problem is still there.

If your problem still persist, some COM addins are not shown in the userinterface and can only be unloaded from the registry. Check the registry, at this location:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Excel\AddIns\

Warning: Backup your registry before making ANY changes!!!

Not an add-in? It may be a (hidden) workbook causing trouble then.

Check workbooks that load at startup.

1. Find your XLSTART folder (in Windows Explorer, type %appdata%\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART in the address bar and press the Enter key)
2. Move all files out of that location
3. Open them one by one (in Excel) and find the one with the error
4. Move the others back.

You can also check whether a folder has been set to load at startup and repeat the above for that folder.

Click the File tab, select Options, and click the Advanced tab, scroll down to find the General section:

File tab, Excel Options, General tab

Removing Excel's registry entries

Sometimes all actions listed above don't help to resolve the problem. For various users, removing Excel's main registry entry in Windows Registry solved the problem.

Warning: All cautions about tampering with the registry apply!!

As a last resort, remove the entire root folder of Excel from the registry (it should be recreated when you launch Excel). This is the registry key to remove:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Excel

First find this key and export it to your desktop by right-clicking on the "Excel" entry in the folder tree and selecting Export.

When the export is done, right-click the entry in the tree again and choose Delete:

Now restart Excel and see if that has helped.

Opening Files From Desktop Or Explorer Fails

Reregister Excel with Windows

If you have trouble loading Excel files by double-clicking, the shell registration for Excel may have to be re-written. How to do that depends on your Excel version.

To reset the File associations for Excel, run setup/repair (running the Office setup in Repair mode from "Programs and Features", aka "Add/Remove Programs").

Ignore other applications

Check in Tools, Options, General tab whether "Ignore other applications" is set. Uncheck it.

Trouble caused by antivirus software

NAV has shown to cause "Excel caused an invalid page
fault in module VBE6.DLL".
You might try disabling the Office plug in of NAV.

Trouble caused by corrupt temporary files

When a workbook contains controls from Excel's control toolbox temporary files are created in that folder. If such a temporary file is somehow corrupted it may prevent the workbook it belongs to from working normally and sometimes even causes Excel to crash. To try to avoind such errors, emptying your Temp folder may help.

Select Start, run and type %temp% and hit OK to directly open your temp folder.

Disabled files

Files may have been disabled when Excel thought them to be the cause of a crash. If you have had a problem with opening a file, Excel may have labeled it as suspect.

Select the File tab (Office button in 2007) and click (Excel) Options. Click the Add-ins tab and use the dropdown:

Other resources

Do you have one particular file that causes trouble? Check out this page.

Microsoft Fix-it

Microsoft has recently added two pages on this subject, both with so-called "Fix-it" solutions for several elements stated above.

How to troubleshoot Excel startup problems

With Windows 10 many problems have been reported in the newsgroups and fora regarding Office. Microsoft has written an elaborate article on the known issues and their possible resolutions here: Known issues with Office and Windows 10

Some information on startup switches:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;211481

What other people have to say about this subject:

http://www.cpearson.com/excel/StartupErrors.htm

http://www.contextures.com/xlfaqApp.html