I first noticed that I can't type in a cell. I have to go up to the field
above the worksheet to enter data, then I have to literally click into
another cell to get it to post. Then a few minutes ago, I tried to sort and
got a continuous processing, but no sorting. I then tried to close out of the
worksheet and it wouldn't respond. I restarted, but that didn't fix it. Would
a system restore likely get it back to normal? I don't want to go hunt for
the original Office CDs to install it from scratch if I don't have to.

Using System Restore may get you going again, but is no guarantee. System
Restore doesn't record ever little thing about every application - it's
primarily designed to 'guard' the OS vs applications.

You may want to hunt down those install CDs anyhow - as you can probably do
a 'repair' installation from them that may get it going without actually
doing an uninstall/reinstall. If you do end up uninstalling/reinstalling,
then after doing the uninstall go find the Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Officenn (where nn is 11 for Office 2003 and 12 for Office 2007) and
delete it to force the new installation to rewrite all critical files.

Before you go down that road, plan ahead and be sure and make backups of
things like all of your emails/Outlook (.pst files) and stuff related to it
and make sure you know user ids/passwords to restore email accounts. Of
course, you can just elect (with the CDs hand) to simply remove and reinstall
Excel only.

Keep the destruction level to the minimum possible to get you going again,
even if the cost is some lost time in working up from least destructive to
most devastating 'solution' to the problem.

"Wiley" wrote:

I first noticed that I can't type in a cell. I have to go up to the field
above the worksheet to enter data, then I have to literally click into
another cell to get it to post. Then a few minutes ago, I tried to sort and
got a continuous processing, but no sorting. I then tried to close out of the
worksheet and it wouldn't respond. I restarted, but that didn't fix it. Would
a system restore likely get it back to normal? I don't want to go hunt for
the original Office CDs to install it from scratch if I don't have to.

Thank you for taking the time to give me such a thorough reply. I back up
every night through Mozy, so I'll wait to do all of this in the morning.
Again, thank you for giving me such a great response.

"JLatham" wrote:

Using System Restore may get you going again, but is no guarantee. System
Restore doesn't record ever little thing about every application - it's
primarily designed to 'guard' the OS vs applications.

You may want to hunt down those install CDs anyhow - as you can probably do
a 'repair' installation from them that may get it going without actually
doing an uninstall/reinstall. If you do end up uninstalling/reinstalling,
then after doing the uninstall go find the Program Files\Microsoft
Office\Officenn (where nn is 11 for Office 2003 and 12 for Office 2007) and
delete it to force the new installation to rewrite all critical files.

Before you go down that road, plan ahead and be sure and make backups of
things like all of your emails/Outlook (.pst files) and stuff related to it
and make sure you know user ids/passwords to restore email accounts. Of
course, you can just elect (with the CDs hand) to simply remove and reinstall
Excel only.

Keep the destruction level to the minimum possible to get you going again,
even if the cost is some lost time in working up from least destructive to
most devastating 'solution' to the problem.

"Wiley" wrote:

I first noticed that I can't type in a cell. I have to go up to the field
above the worksheet to enter data, then I have to literally click into
another cell to get it to post. Then a few minutes ago, I tried to sort and
got a continuous processing, but no sorting. I then tried to close out of the
worksheet and it wouldn't respond. I restarted, but that didn't fix it. Would
a system restore likely get it back to normal? I don't want to go hunt for
the original Office CDs to install it from scratch if I don't have to.