Bizarre - can't double click to open Excel files

[aseanor]

My company recently upgraded to 2003. Since the upgrade, I have been
unable to open an excel file in any way except through the open file
dialog in Excel itself. If I click on an icon (either on my desktop or
an attachment in an email), I get a pause, a jpeg of an adobe icon gets
copied into my clipboard and then a few seconds later, I get a message
that the file can not be found.

Everything else seems to work fine, all my models and files work fine,
all my links work fine and I have virus scanned / spyware scanned left
right and center.

MY IT guys have given up and are now avoiding me. Anyone have any
ideas? This is very annoying.

 

[Dave Peterson]

It sounds like Adobe stole the file association.

I try this first:

Close Excel and
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /unregserver
then
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /regserver

The /unregserver & /regserver stuff resets the windows registry to excel's
factory defaults.

If that doesn't work...

Open windows explorer
find a .xls file
shift rightlclick on it
choose "open With"
browse for excel.exe
and make sure you check that box at the bottom (to always use the selected
program to open this type of file).

 

[aseanor]

That wasn't it though. I think I have it working now. A friend came
through with a simple idea.

It was actually that the check box - ignore other applications that
was checked in tools/options. Not sure how that happened - probably an
errant click when setting up excel.

The adobe picture still gets added to the clipboard everytime I open
excel. But I can live with that. Can't figure that one out.