Thanks to both - the second part of Joel's solution worked (for some reason I
have 2 Excels on the list and choosing the second sorted it).

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

Sometimes one of these works when you're having trouble with double clicking on
the file in windows explorer:

Tools|Options|General|Ignore other applications (uncheck it)

--- or ---

Close Excel and
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /unregserver
then
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /regserver

The /unregserver & /regserver stuff resets some of the windows registry to
excel's factory defaults.

Smallweed wrote:

For some reason when I double-click on an Excel file in Windows Explorer (or
try to open an emailed file directly from the email) it no longer opens.
This suddenly started happening - or not happening - last week and I have no
idea why. I can still open from inside Excel with File, Open.

Any ideas on how I can fix this?

--

Dave Peterson