I hope someone can help me with a problem I'm having opening an .xls
file.

The file is 14.7M in size.

I backed up the file onto the Windows Live server before I left on
this trip.

I opened the file a few times without any issues just a few weeks ago.

At some point something must have changed on my system.
Now when I try to open the file I get this message:

Microsoft Office Excel has encountered a problem and needs to close.
We are sorry for the inconvenience.
The info you were working on might be lost.
Microsoft Office Excel can try to recover it for you.
etc....

It doesn't matter what I do at this stage. The file closes and I can't
access it.
Yes I can check the box 'recover my work ad restart...'
but the file is so stripped down that it is unusable for me.

Even if I go back to the file I saved on Windows Live that I know was
good on my system, I still can't open it!
I get the same error message.

Any suggestions?

I really need to get into this file (even just to delete half of the
stuff I don't need to make the file smaller).

When I try to open it on the net in Windows Live, either using Excel
on the net or in my web browser, it balks and refuses to open saying
it is too large or something like that.

TIA