Fixing Startup problems

This article was used by Microsoft to create a set of automatic fixes (Microsoft FixIt). See:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/919196

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

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

Errors when Excel starts

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.

Tools, Add-ins
note which are checked
Uncheck all (but one)
Restart XL
If no error, check the next one and repeat from step 4

Got the error? uncheck the one you last checked.

Com Addins

Another type of addins are COM addins.

Rightclick a commandbar and choose customise
Click the commands tab
Find an entry in the tools section called "COM addins"
Drag to any toolbar or menu
Close customise dialog and click that menu item
Uncheck all shown COM addins

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 will be a (hidden) workbook then.

Check workbooks that load at startup.

Find your XLSTART folder (On WIndows XP it may be a path like this:
C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART
Move all files out of it;
Open them one by one (in Excel) and find the one with the error;
Move the others back.

Repeat the above for the folder listed in Tools, Options, General, "Alternate Startup file location" or "At startup, open all Files in:" (The text depends on your version of Excel).

Open Excel in Safe mode

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

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.

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\11.0\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.

Exporting Excel's main entry in the registry

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

Deleting the Excel registry key

Now restart Excel and see if that has helped.

Files will not open from explorer

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.

Excel 2007 and 2010.

In older versions of Excel, the /Regserver switch was used to write the shell registration for Excel. This was true up to Excel 2003, and was removed in Excel 2007. For Excel 2010 and 2007 you need to run setup/repair (running the Office setup in Repair mode from "Programs and Features", aka "Add/Remove Programs").

Excel 2003 and before

Click Start, Run and enter:

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /Regserver

This generally fixes trouble with opening Excel files from the desktop or by (double)clicking them in Explorer.

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

Try cleaning your TEMP folder:

In Windows 95/98 and ME

Delete all files in C:\Windows\Temp

In Windows NT/2000/XP

Find and Select C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\local settings\temp
and delete all files in there.
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.

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

Disabled files

Excel XP and 2003 have some new features, which may disable certain files 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.
In Excel, select Help | About Microsoft Excel.
Click the button near the bottom labeled "Disabled Items..."

If the offending file is listed, select it and click Enable. The file you just enabled may of course cause Excel to crash again, click here to find some pointers on how to open corrupt Excel files.

Links

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

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

Excel 2003 and older:

How to troubleshoot startup problems in Excel

Excel 2007:

How to troubleshoot Excel 2007 startup problems

Here is some information on startup switches:

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

Here's what other people have to say about this subject:

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

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

Comments

Showing last 8 comments of 130 in total (Show All Comments):

Comment by: sql2k8 (5/12/2010 9:19:32 AM)

excel is not importing into an application

when i load an excel sheet into the application. it is not getting uploaded .it tells to me that it is an invalid spreadsheet. i had created a table in EXCEL and i had loaded the data into the excel using ssis.

is there any way the user can import the data from excel to the appplication with out opening and saving the excel sheet. if the excel is opened and saved then the excel gets loaded into the application. but i dont want that.

Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (5/14/2010 6:07:20 AM)

Hi sql2k8,

Which application are you referring to? Maybe this application cannot import all Excel file types?

Comment by: Kent (6/10/2010 2:47:16 AM)

Hi Jan Karel,

thanks for this article; I have a user who needs particular Add-Ins so I can't just disable them, and there is no Bluetooth COM Add-In or anything suspicious like that. I examined the Event Viewer logs and it's clear that Excel is crashing (the error that I get I presume is from MS Diagnostics: "Excel has stopped working") but it's not evident why. I have asked the user to try fresh worksheets and to see if the problem can be consistently replicated (I can certainly clearly see each crash event in the Event Viewer).

Any tips or ideas where to look for more diagnostics or other troubleshooting tips?

Alvast bedankt!

Met vriendelijke groet

Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (6/10/2010 4:29:55 AM)

Hi Kent,

It is not the intention to permanently disable those add-ins, just temporarily to see if any of them are causing the issue you are experiencing.

Look in the links section higher up this page for other pages on startup problems.

Comment by: Gunnar Hemström (8/2/2010 5:00:13 AM)

Hi Jan Karel,
I have reason to believe that you would recognise btsendto_office.dll and its associated COM addin as a source of trouble in Excel 2007: [B]What does this addin help me with?[/B] If I deactivate it, it certainly makes my excel sheets start and close allright, else Excel crashes after a sheet is closed and reopened however simple it is.

Best regards

Gunnar H

Comment by: jim jesberger (8/5/2010 9:25:10 AM)

unable to send a spread sheet directly from excel screen via the internet. the messages remain in the outbox. thanks

Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (8/16/2010 3:25:04 AM)

Hi Gunnar,

I have never heard of that dll, but it obviously contains a bug. I'd leave it diabled. Have you tried searching google for that dll?

Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (8/16/2010 4:26:01 AM)

Hi Jim,

I'm afraid I wouldn't know whow to resolve this, this is probably an Outlook issue.

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