Need help opening a file!

troubleshooting questions:

Hiya,

I have some questions that might help:

1. Are other Excel files openning properly on your 2nd machine? -if so the issue is with the file, if not you may want to run a system clean up (deleting *tmp files and the like).

2. How did you transfer the file from your 1st machine (where the file works) to the one where it does not work. Disk? Email? On the Server?

-If the file is not on a Server, the file might have been corrupted in the transfer. To confirm this, see if you can reopen the same file the same way (eg. from the disk).

3. Have you checked for Windows\Unhide? (I know..dumb question)

4. Same versions of excel on both machines?

5. Can you try opening the file on a coworker's computer?

If I had to put money down I'd guess that you're looking at a corrupt file that probably happened on the transfer. It might be a matter of resending it.

Hope that helps,
Adam

Re: troubleshooting questions:

Thank you for the quick response. The file does reside on a server in a shared folder. Both computers are accessing the same file with presumably the same version of excel. I am hoping that the second computer (not being able to open the file) is missing some parameter. I am able to open this macro file on my computer, and a colleagues computer, however this newly installed computer yesterday is not opening the file. I have checked his security level for macros and have set his options to show all. I guess my last resort is to uninstall his excel program and re-install it. Is this my only option?

Re: troubleshooting questions:

Hi again.

Just to be clear, you CAN open the file on 2 computers successfully after failing to open the file on this other machine? If so, that's really good news. It means your file is obviously not corrupt and the issue is with this other machine.

Can this machine open other excel files from the server? (At all for that matter). If you can't, I'd say it's time to go ahead and reinstall. Sure you can delete *tmp files and clear your Office Recents folder, but it sounds like Office was just installed recently. Smells like a bad install to me.

But if other excel files do open normally, then reinstalling might not necessarily help. If this is the case, continue reading.

Hows the machine performance otherwise? If it's a low end machine, maybe it simply can't handle some aspect of your file. You mentioned that you had at least one macro in the current file, anything else? Any Pivot Tables, Charts, or any sort of Embedded objects? Does the file have any seriously long calculations to perform?

If this machine appears to be able to handle any excel file except the one you're working with, you may be forced to try copying a few sheets at a time to a 2nd workbook for testing. This can be irritating I realize, but this might be the only way to find out what aspect of the file is acting up for that computer. Once identified, you may have to cope with a design change in your spreadsheet (possibly breaking up the current file into smaller linked files).

Good luck,
We've all been there

Adam S.