Excel documents won't open on first try......

[UHCW]

I am having problems opening Excel documents on first try. If I double click a excel doc icon it will start excel, hang for about a minute and a half then just display a excel blank doc. If I then go back to the original doc icon with excel still open and double click it again the document appears. Can someone please help because I'm slowley losing the will to live !!!

 

[Richard Schollar]

Hi

Just possibly this results from having an option checked - go Tools>Options>General tab and uncheck "Ignore other applications" and see if you still get this problem.

 

[j.collyer]

Hi

Just possibly this results from having an option checked - go Tools>Options>General tab and uncheck "Ignore other applications" and see if you still get this problem.

Well using the above might be help identify what the problem is caused by but it only makes the file open delay delay worse for me.

I am running Excel 2007 on windows XP. The delayed file opening is also driving me crazy.

This same problem happens when I am using window explorer to double click a file launching Excel and opening the file. If I have Excel open first the double click file open does not seam to have the delay problem. This is for files on a local drives.

If the file is on a network drive I have the file double click open problem with or without excel being launched first.

You know you have the problem if you can click away from Excel back to the windows Explorer application and then back to Excel, then the document opens right away. While I never understood DDE from a programming stand point, this behavior does appear to be an automation error/bug between Windows file handling and Office 2007 applications. Where that bug is will be a mystery, Microsoft does not have any bug reporting tools for the average Joe to submit issues.

I used to think that the delay was related to the template file directories, our companie's were on a network share. I deleted my path to the templates and I vaguely remember fixing this same issue in Office 2003 applications. Double check you template paths for office 2007 and make sure you do not have a disconnected network path referenced. Oh and by the way, there is no way in Excel to change your default or assigned template paths, Microsoft only allowed to change template locations for all office applications in Word (as of now). You will have to use Words settings to change locations:

Start Word 2007, click the Office button and choose Word Options, Advanced and locate the General group. Click File Locations, User Templates, Modify and in the modify location dialog change the setting in the folder name list or the look in list to point to the folder where your templates will be saved.

From:
http://www.projectwoman.com/2007/06/changing-excel-2007-default-template.html

I removed my template paths that were pointing to network drive, but it still did not fix this issue. (Now that I think about it... I think the network templates were causing my office applications to hang when launched not when opening files).

Just for comparison would need to know what version you are running for Excel and if you have any Excel Addins or templates missing on network drive. Then we will know if we are experiencing the same issue.

FYI have have a team of 7 engineers with this same issue on Excel 2007 and XP.


We need a Office 2007 (especially Excel 2007) gripe-list somewhere to log all the bugs. It is getting worse by the day.

 

[sailepaty]

Try this.

Open explorer -> Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types
Find the .XLS extension and click Advanced
Select the Open bold option and -> Edit
In the box under "Application used..." go to the end and add the "%1" after the /e (inlcude the quotes)

Ok->Ok->Close

I hope it helps.

 

[j.collyer]

Try this.

Open explorer -> Tools -> Folder Options -> File Types
Find the .XLS extension and click Advanced
Select the Open bold option and -> Edit
In the box under "Application used..." go to the end and add the "%1" after the /e (inlcude the quotes)

Ok->Ok->Close

I hope it helps.

I tried the above and it fixed the delayed opening but then when you close the file another copy is immediately opened.

Don't try this---> I tried disabling DDE (is it still used by windows?) and then I had problems with VBA out of memory issues upon file open (I did not have any VBA macro in my .xls files). I had to resort to the regristry to find the real values for the box under "Application used..." and change back the value because using the file types editor was not making a fix that would stick. It would only work for the first file opened and then during the file open event Windows would rewrite the the "Application used..." value with the %1 at the end. It would not go away.

 

[sailepaty]

Sorry to heard that, I recommended the tip because we are using it as it is and didn’t get any complain. You might want to give a look to the below links, they included one more setting to the DDE options.

http://www.asap-utilities.com/faq-questions-answers-detail.php?m=156

http://martin.von-gagern.net/howtos/excel2007load


Regards

 

[ciprianmp]

What about Excel 2007 on Vista? I always have to open Excel first then drag and drop the .xls files to have them open.
It shows associated with M Excel 2007 but when I want to change it (check it) it goes to Wordpad. The icon file is still excel, ... what can I do?
Thanks!

 

[SydneyGeek]

Yeah, it's wacky. Sometimes I get the same thing. Interestingly, just clicking the restore selector on the window causes the window to flash down and then revert to Maximized, with the file now displayed.
I can't explain why but it's working regularly for me on XP / Office 2007

EDIT -- just noticed that htis page has been viewed 6,402 times to this point. With that number of looks it's unlikely to just be just idle curiosity. Is this a general, undocumented problem?

Denis

 

[nbrcrunch]

I use v2007 both at work and home. The only time I notice this is when I forgot that I was in cell-edit mode or when I had a dialog box open like the Open or Save panels but then switched to Windows Explorer and navigated to another file and tried to open it.

Another time I've seen this is when I using MS-Query inside Excel and query has some lock on the Excel session that prevents me from opening another file


In both instances the issue cleared up the moment I finished what I was doing on the previous session.

Since I am managing multiple files all day long, it does get easy to forget what I was up to. Lately I've taken the "keep it simple stupid" attitude and try not to have anymore than 3 excel files open at any one time.

 

[jonnyporter]

I also get the same problem with Excel files not opening unless the app is already running. I thought it might be something to do with my anti virus software (AVG Free version 7.5.557) since it says in the status bar Running Virus Scan... seems to do it, then says Ready but doesn't open the file.

If you go to another window or even right-click on the empty page and then click off again it opens. Its as if its not getting the final message to open the file. Could it be the anti virus software that is causing it? I suppose it would affect more applications if that were the case.

Any thoughts on that?