Undo and other issues

M

MintHillVOL

Recently, the "undo" function (CTRL-Z, and edit menu) have stopped working,
and I'm seeing other commands in the edit menu (Can't close, etc.).

The other issue is that pop-up menus & command boxes (such as "customize"
and "options" from the Tools menu) have no background color. Changing the
color pallette using the "display" function in settings does not fix the
problem.

I'm using Excel 2003 and these are the first problems I've had. Operating
system is Windows XP SP3.

Any suggestions are appreciated.
 
R

RJ27

I have exactly the same problem, in the same context. There are no add-ins -
also no macros, nor disabled items. Any tips please?
 
J

Jan Karel Pieterse

Hi Rj27,

A COM addin may be troubling you:

- Open Excel
- right-click a toolbar, select customize
- On the commands tab, click the Tools item
- on the right, look for "Com Addins" and drag it to any menu or toolbar
- click the OK button
- click Com Addins from where you put it
- uncheck COM addins, see if your problem goes away.

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
http://www.jkp-ads.com
Member of:
Professional Office Developer Association
www.proofficedev.com
 
J

Jan Karel Pieterse

Hi Rj27,
Yes, it does!
Click to expand...

Great, we're getting closer.

1. Check toolbar customisation file.

Close all Excel instances and open windows find. Search for *.xlb (make sure to
search for hidden files and in hidden folders). If it finds any, rename their
extension to something like .old.
Leave the find window open and now start Excel normally. If your problem goes
away you have nailed down the problem. If it didn't, you can close Excel, and
restore the xlb file (mind you: Excel has recreated that file, so you'll have
to remove the new version before you can rename your renamed one back).

2. Check workbooks loaded at startup

2a. Do a find again, this time, look for a folder named XLSTART
If found, open that folder (each one it finds) and move all files in that/those
folder(s) to a different location (might be good to create a temporary folder
on your desktop for that).
Now restart Excel. If the problem has been resolved the culprit was one of the
files you moved. Open them one at the time, each time restarting Excel, to
check which one caused your trouble. Move the other ones back.

2b. Look in Tools, Options, general tab. Is anything listed next to
"At startup, open all files in..."? If so, either clear that entry, or move all
files from the folder listed there to some place else. Now start Excel again
and check if the problem went away.

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
http://www.jkp-ads.com
Member of:
Professional Office Developer Association
www.proofficedev.com
 
R

RJ27

No luck. sadly.
1. Search for *.xlb etc
Click to expand...
I found Excel11.xlb. When I tried to rename it, I could not see the
extension, so I cut the file and pasted it onto a data stick. However this
made no difference, so I replaced it.
2a. Do a find again, this time, look for a folder named XLSTART
Click to expand...
I found a file PDF maker in two folders. Again, I removed them to the
datastick. It made no difference

Finally
2b. Is anything listed next to "At startup, open all files in..."?
Click to expand...
No, nothing is listed.

???
Richard
 
J

Jan Karel Pieterse

Hi Rj27,
No luck. sadly.
Click to expand...

Duh. Well, not to worry. The fact that you can start Excel in safe mode without
the problem indicates we should be able to resolve this.

Some pointers from my web page about excel startup problems:

1.

"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!!!"

2. Have you tried the regserver trick:

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

followed by:
Start, Run,
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /Regserver

3. Temp folders:

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.

4. Let Excel rebuild its registry entries

As a last resort, we could remove the entire root folder of Excel from the
registry (it should be recreated when you launch Excel):

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel

First find this key and export it to your desktop by rightclicking on the
"Excel" entry in the folder tree and selecting Export.

When the export is done, rightclick the entry in the tree again and choose
Delete.

(all cautions about tampering with the registry apply!!)

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
http://www.jkp-ads.com
Member of:
Professional Office Developer Association
www.proofficedev.com
 
R

RJ27

Phew! we seem to have done it, with step 4. So it was something in the
registry. Is it worth looking at the entries to find out what? Or shall we
leave well alone?
R
 
J

Jan Karel Pieterse

Hi Rj27,
Phew! we seem to have done it, with step 4. So it was something in the
registry. Is it worth looking at the entries to find out what? Or shall we
leave well alone?
Click to expand...

Hurray!!!!!!!!

Good idea. Could you please send me an email with the attached registry export
and a description of your problem (as complete as you can)? I'd like to send
this to Microsoft and ask them what is going on.

You can find my email address at the bottom of each page of my website
www.jkp-ads.com.

Regards,

Jan Karel Pieterse
Excel MVP
http://www.jkp-ads.com
Member of:
Professional Office Developer Association
www.proofficedev.com
 

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