Suddenly, I cannot open and excel doc w/out opening excel first...

[KillerCat]

I cannot open a doc through an excel shortcut, but I can open the doc if I go
through excel. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Ken Wright]

Tools / Options / General / Uncheck 'Ignore Other Applications'

 

[Rob Bovey]

I cannot open a doc through an excel shortcut, but I can open the doc if I
go
through excel. Any suggestions?

Choose Tools/Options/General from the Excel menu and make sure the
"Ignore other applications" checkbox is not checked.

--
Rob Bovey, Excel MVP
Application Professionals
http://www.appspro.com/

* Take your Excel development skills to the next level.
* Professional Excel Development
http://www.appspro.com/Books/Books.htm

 

[whatever]

Hello Rob (and Ken):

(Excel 2000 on Windows XP Home)

I had the same problem as KillerCat. I first tried to reregister excel as
per KB article support id: 296055 with no result. Then I reregistered the
..xls filetype using windows explorer without result. I applied your solution
and now excel does open the spreadsheet but not before generating a
succession of file/path error messages. It seems to be chopping up the
path/file string and adding the .xls extension to each \filepath fragment.
For example, when I try to open a spreadsheet named pffiles from the "Recent
Documents" list I get the following series of error messages before excel
opens the file:

'C:\Documents.xls' could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name,
and verify that the file location is correct.

'and.xls' could not be found. Check the etc ...

'Settings\wtevr\My.xls' could not be found...

'Documents\Spreadsheets\pf.xls' could not be found...

'files.xls' could not be found.

FWIW, I believe the problem opening xls files from outside excel started
when I monkeyed with the Tools/Options/Genera/ default and alternate startup
directories. I have since changed them back to the original specs.

Thanks in advance.

 

[whatever]

Hello again Rob,

Please ignore my previous post. I ran "Detect and Repair" and that fixed
the problem.

 

[Mark]

Hello,
I have developed the same problem. However, I have run the "Detect and
Repair" and the "ignore other applications" was never checked. Still cannot
open old files.

Mark

 

[Nick Hodge]

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/918165

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
www.nickhodge.co.uk
(e-mail address removed)