Chip Pearson has some notes on how to diagnose startup errors:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/StartupErrors.htm

And Jan Karel Pieterse has more notes:
http://www.jkp-ads.com/Articles/StartupProblems.asp

Daphne wrote:

Okay - Excel stopped working - everything else works (Powerpoint, outlook and
word), yet Excel won't open. it makes a noise and the loading screen very
briefly pops up but it goes away.

I've opened it in safe mode and that worked, but I can't open it outside of
safe mode.

please help!!

--

Dave Peterson