I've been running Windows Office XP SBE and yesterday Excel stopped working.
The other applications are fine. When I click on Excel if flashes for a
second and then disappears. Tried uninstalling and then installing. Tried
virus scans and hard drive checks/defragmentation and get the same result.

On an Office thread from 2005 someone suggested changing an Excel.xlb file
to Excel.abc. I tried to rename the file but it produced Excel.abc.xlb. I
couldn't get rid of the .xlb extension. Not sure if that would solve the
problem but need help on completing this fix. Other suggestions welcome too.

Any help would be appreciated. Thx.

Don

Try deleting the .xlb file. (It is a toolbar customization file, excel will
create a new one. all toolbar changes will be gone)

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
DTHIS
www.nickhodge.co.uk


"Don T." wrote in message
...
I've been running Windows Office XP SBE and yesterday Excel stopped
working.
The other applications are fine. When I click on Excel if flashes for a
second and then disappears. Tried uninstalling and then installing.
Tried
virus scans and hard drive checks/defragmentation and get the same result.

On an Office thread from 2005 someone suggested changing an Excel.xlb file
to Excel.abc. I tried to rename the file but it produced Excel.abc.xlb.
I
couldn't get rid of the .xlb extension. Not sure if that would solve the
problem but need help on completing this fix. Other suggestions welcome
too.

Any help would be appreciated. Thx.

Did you close Excel when you tried to rename the toolbars
file (.xlb), seems you tried to do something other than rename
like editing a file and trying to use save as. The idea is remove
the file, so you could simply move the file to somewhere else,
and Excel will create a toolbars file when it starts up. If that was
not the problem then restore your toolbars file.

More information on toolbars in
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/toolbars.htm

I kind of think that clearing out you Internet Explorer temporary
files might work, because I think if it were toolbars that you get
some type on indication as to the problem. More information
on getting Excel up again.

If they don't work then try starting Excel in Safe Mode, which
starts Excel without macros and addins (temporary)
http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/slowresp.htm#reg

From Windows Start, Run
excel.exe /s

---
HTH,
David McRitchie, Microsoft MVP - Excel
My Excel Pages: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/excel.htm
Search Page: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/search.htm

"Don T." wrote in message ...
I've been running Windows Office XP SBE and yesterday Excel stopped working.
The other applications are fine. When I click on Excel if flashes for a
second and then disappears. Tried uninstalling and then installing. Tried
virus scans and hard drive checks/defragmentation and get the same result.

On an Office thread from 2005 someone suggested changing an Excel.xlb file
to Excel.abc. I tried to rename the file but it produced Excel.abc.xlb. I
couldn't get rid of the .xlb extension. Not sure if that would solve the
problem but need help on completing this fix. Other suggestions welcome too.

Any help would be appreciated. Thx.

and even if that was not the problem, it may take months to
recover extensive changes to toolbars, if there is no backup.
Renaming or moving to another directory is a lot safer.

"Nick Hodge" wrote ...
Don

Try deleting the .xlb file. (It is a toolbar customization file, excel will
create a new one. all toolbar changes will be gone)

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

Don T. wrote:

I've been running Windows Office XP SBE and yesterday Excel stopped working.
The other applications are fine. When I click on Excel if flashes for a
second and then disappears. Tried uninstalling and then installing. Tried
virus scans and hard drive checks/defragmentation and get the same result.

On an Office thread from 2005 someone suggested changing an Excel.xlb file
to Excel.abc. I tried to rename the file but it produced Excel.abc.xlb. I
couldn't get rid of the .xlb extension. Not sure if that would solve the
problem but need help on completing this fix. Other suggestions welcome too.

Any help would be appreciated. Thx.

--

Dave Peterson

I was able to get Excel started in safe mode using the "Excel.exe /s" step.
After that I went through the checklist on the Peason Consulting startup
errors list. I didn't delete every temp file but I took it down to about
1000 from over 3000. I couldn't delete the entire folder so I did that
pretty much one by one. So I may not have done enough on that step. Also, I
tried the Alt-F11 step and nothing came up. Still Excel would not come up.

After that I went to one of his links back to Microsoft and attempted a
"clean boot". Bad move. After the clean boot, Excel would still not come
up. I was able to restore everything except my OUTLOOK files. On Excel (via
safe mode) and Word all of my data files were intact. On OUTLOOK all of my
contacts, old emails and preferences were lost and I couldn't get my ISP to
send/receive on OUTLOOK. However, my settings work fine with Outlook
Express, which is what I am using going forward. I started another
discussion thread on this in Outlook and haven't been able to retreive my
data yet.

At this point, I'm happy I can access my Excel files via safe mode. I'm also
happy I still have Outlook Express. However, I still don't know why this
happened and haven't really gotten either Application back to normal.

Unless you see an obvious mis-step on my part, I think I'll leave this alone
for now. I've killed about 15 hours on this this weekend. I sincerely do
appreciate your collective help and feedback though. Happy Holidays


"Dave Peterson" wrote:

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

Don T. wrote:

I've been running Windows Office XP SBE and yesterday Excel stopped working.
The other applications are fine. When I click on Excel if flashes for a
second and then disappears. Tried uninstalling and then installing. Tried
virus scans and hard drive checks/defragmentation and get the same result.

On an Office thread from 2005 someone suggested changing an Excel.xlb file
to Excel.abc. I tried to rename the file but it produced Excel.abc.xlb. I
couldn't get rid of the .xlb extension. Not sure if that would solve the
problem but need help on completing this fix. Other suggestions welcome too.

Any help would be appreciated. Thx.

--

Dave Peterson

It sounds like you did things ok, but the results weren't what I'd expect.

When I'm deleting the files from the Temp folder, I show the files in detail
view, then sort by the last update column.

Then I can stay away from today's date and delete the files that were updated
yesterday or before. But I can't believe that having lots of files in the temp
folder (or deleting those files) would cause the trouble that you describe.

You don't store real files (like the .pst files from Outlook) in your Temp
folder, do you? That Temp folder should only be used for programs--or things
that you know you'll want to delete.

Maybe you can search for your .pst files to see if they're on your harddrive
somewhere--just not opened by outlook. I'd direct questions about Outlook to a
dedicated Outlook newsgroup, though.

As for excel, I read where you said that you tried reinstalling excel. I think
I'd back up all my important files and then remove office (via the control
panel, add/remove programs), then try reinstalling again.

But as an aside, I've never lost any data when I've reinstalled office.

Sorry things didn't go as intended. If you find the solution, you may want to
post back. Then google will have it for others.

Don T. wrote:

I was able to get Excel started in safe mode using the "Excel.exe /s" step.
After that I went through the checklist on the Peason Consulting startup
errors list. I didn't delete every temp file but I took it down to about
1000 from over 3000. I couldn't delete the entire folder so I did that
pretty much one by one. So I may not have done enough on that step. Also, I
tried the Alt-F11 step and nothing came up. Still Excel would not come up.

After that I went to one of his links back to Microsoft and attempted a
"clean boot". Bad move. After the clean boot, Excel would still not come
up. I was able to restore everything except my OUTLOOK files. On Excel (via
safe mode) and Word all of my data files were intact. On OUTLOOK all of my
contacts, old emails and preferences were lost and I couldn't get my ISP to
send/receive on OUTLOOK. However, my settings work fine with Outlook
Express, which is what I am using going forward. I started another
discussion thread on this in Outlook and haven't been able to retreive my
data yet.

At this point, I'm happy I can access my Excel files via safe mode. I'm also
happy I still have Outlook Express. However, I still don't know why this
happened and haven't really gotten either Application back to normal.

Unless you see an obvious mis-step on my part, I think I'll leave this alone
for now. I've killed about 15 hours on this this weekend. I sincerely do
appreciate your collective help and feedback though. Happy Holidays

"Dave Peterson" wrote:

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

Don T. wrote:

I've been running Windows Office XP SBE and yesterday Excel stopped working.
The other applications are fine. When I click on Excel if flashes for a
second and then disappears. Tried uninstalling and then installing. Tried
virus scans and hard drive checks/defragmentation and get the same result.

On an Office thread from 2005 someone suggested changing an Excel.xlb file
to Excel.abc. I tried to rename the file but it produced Excel.abc.xlb. I
couldn't get rid of the .xlb extension. Not sure if that would solve the
problem but need help on completing this fix. Other suggestions welcome too.

Any help would be appreciated. Thx.

--

Dave Peterson


--

Dave Peterson