Fixing Startup problems

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

Start, Run,
"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.

This is what Microsoft has to say about startup problems:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;280504

And this about 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 91 in total (Show All Comments):

Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (4/11/2009 2:36:29 AM)

Hi Margareth,

You mean the window of Excel is much wider than your screen width? I have seen this happen on systems that sometimes use two monitors, but other times not and Excel still thinks it can span two screens. I expect a quick way around this (if you have only one program running) is by right-clicking the taskbar of Windows and selecting "Cascade windows".

Then drag Excel's window to the dimensions you like it to have and close Excel.

Now try to open Excel again and see whether the window size is back to normal.

Comment by: zacharias (4/29/2009 7:08:16 PM)

when i try to close excel 2007 sp2 the program does not respond and appear window says "microsoft program stop working" , after restart program . how can i correct this the problem ? this is appeared only in excel .

thank you

Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (4/30/2009 1:45:19 AM)

Hi Zacharias,

I'd suggest to try the suggestions on this page until you find the culprit.

Comment by: Mike (5/18/2009 11:55:51 AM)

I'm running Office 2003 on Windows XP. All programs work except Excel, which crashes immediately upon loading. I've deleted the temporary files; the XLSTART folder is empty though. Could this be the problem? If so which files should be in this folder? Thanks.

Mike

Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (5/19/2009 12:58:47 AM)

Hi Mike,

I suggest you try the other options shown above first. XLSTART may be empty, that poses no problem. In fact it may prevent trouble, as Excel cannot load anything from an empty XLSTART folder.

Comment by: Amit (5/28/2009 8:26:16 AM)

I recently installed 2007 and with 2003 excel exisiting on my laptop. For various reasons I deleted the 2007 version. I have this macro enabled spreadsheet which nows give me a System Error &H800004005 (-2147467259).Microsoft Visual Basic Out of Memory.
I have an add-in which is TM1 8.44 version. This worked with both versions. Now error occurs
Appreciate your advice.

Comment by: Jan Karel Pieterse (5/28/2009 10:58:09 AM)

Hi Amit,

I advise you to open Excel and do a Help, detect and repair. Removing Office 2007 may have caused your problem.

Comment by: Amit (5/29/2009 1:15:42 AM)

Thanks Jan,
This worked perfectly.