Ok this is such a bizarre, weird problem I have to toss it out to
everyone to see if they can figure out what is going on.

Problem in a nutshell: This just started a week ago. A team of people
in the accounting department has been using Microsoft Excel for years
to track information. They have reasonably new computer running XP and
office 2003. If they try to open a excel files on their computer or on
a network drive (original or shortcut) by double clicking on it Excel
launches software but opens up blank screen (not even the blank
worksheet).

Now they can access their files by going to the file pull down menu and
then chose open file, navigate to the file and open it then. This
second method the documents open just fine. Here's the kicker, no one
else in the company (100+) has this problem all, and they can access
and use these files like normal.

I have done all the obvious things:

-- Created new shortcuts and documents
-- Put the old information into a new document
-- Everything has been patched and up-to-date
-- Office has been uninstalled and reinstalled from scratch.
-- The rest of office software (Word, PowerPoint, Access) all works
fine.
-- Viruses -scanned and found none.
-- Scanned for spyware and a like. I found a few minor things, but they
were cleaned up and it didn't change / fix the problem.
-- I have also tried the reregistering (excel /unregserver ..... excel
/regserver) fix

I'm been avoiding doing a complete format and re-install of
everything or giving them new computers.

Anyone have any thoughts or ideas?

Thanks for the help