I've tried making sure that there's | nothing in XLstart

Yeah, a template in XLSTART is the only cause that comes to mind. There are
two XLSTARTs however, one under Documents and Settings (like C:\Documents
and Settings\<username\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART) and the
other under the Office folder. Did you check both?

--
Jim Rech
Excel MVP
"boilerhouse" wrote in message
...
|I do insert worksheet from the Insert menu, I only have one tab highlighted
| and I get 3 duplicate worksheets as opposed to an new worksheet. Also
when I
| open excel if get the worksheet i expect but if I open a new sheet I get
one
| with some spurious numbers in it. I've tried making sure that there's
| nothing in XLstart or in the file line under optionsgeneralat startup,
open
| files in.. that's blank. So I would have thought I was back to the
default
| settings but this doesn't seem to be the case. I have tried doing a
| re-install from the office disc and doing a check and repair but this
hasn't
| solve it. Any ideas? I'm using Excel 2003 part of Office 2003
professional.