Thanks. I discovered a virus in my registry which was causing the problem.

Nigel
"Gord Dibben" <gorddibbATshawDOTca wrote in message
...
Nigel

Make sure you have double quotes around the path.

"c:\program files\microsoft office\office10\excel.exe"

Windows needs these when spaces in pathnames.

Gord

On Fri, 3 Dec 2004 10:21:57 -0000, "Nigel Barraclough"
wrote:

Thanks for your prompt reply. I have tried everything you said and it
makes
no difference. It looks to me as though something has corrupted whatever
code is used in starting Excel (and Access and IE) up so that it is
searching for things in the wrong directory. I noticed another error
message when starting Excel which reads 'Office\Office10\Excel.exe' could
not be found. The path to Excel.exe on my machine is c:\program
files\microsoft office\office10\excel.exe.
"Gord Dibben" <gorddibbATshawDOTca wrote in message
. ..
Nigel

The standard fixes for this problem.......

ToolsOptionsGeneral uncheck "Ignore other Applications"
Exit Excel and try again

If this doesn't work try to re-register Excel

Close Excel first and
On the Windows Taskbar

1) StartRun "excel.exe /unregserver"(no quotes)OK.
2) StartRun "excel.exe /regserver"(no quotes)OK.
See the space between exe and /regserver

You might have to designate a full path to excel.exe.
In that case StartRun "C:\yourpath\excel.exe /regserver"(no quotes)OK.

One more thing to try if any of the above brings no joy.........

Go to StartSettingsFolderOptionsFile Types. Scroll down to MS Excel
Worksheet. Then if running Win98 OS Edit select "Open" and Edit.

If using WinXP OS you would scroll down to .XLS then
"Advanced"OpenEdit.

In Command line the path should be similar to this....

"C:\PROGRAM FILES\MICROSOFT OFFICE\OFFICE\EXCEL.EXE" /e (delete the
<sp/e if
you want Book1 to open.

You must have the double quotes.

Below have "use DDE" checked and this in the DDE message
box....[open("%1")]

Application should read "Excel"(no quotes)

Your other program errors will have to be addressed elsewhere. I
suggest

microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

Gord Dibben Excel MVP


On Thu, 2 Dec 2004 19:12:23 -0000, "Nigel Barraclough"
wrote:

I have just installed SP2 and various other updates. It may or may not
be
a
coincidence that when I start Excel XP I now get an error box. It reads
"Files\Microsoft.xls could not be found" Despite this error box Excel
does
open and works OK.



Does anyone know how to cure this please?



I also get errors opening Access, Internet Explorer and various
non-Microsoft programs.