I've been using Windows 98SE with Office 2000 for two years without a
problem. Now, suddenly, when I try to open Excel, I get the message
"This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut
down." Message details explain "EXCEL executed an invalid instruction
in module VBE6.DLL."

While searching the newsgroups, I discovered quite a number of
messages containing "VBE6.dll," but none that seemed to address my
problem.

The only recent change to my computer was to upgrade to Acrobat Reader
5.1 from an earlier 4.x version.

I've uninstalled and re-installed -- and attempted to repair the
installation of Excel. And now I've uninstalled Acrobat Reader. But
Excel still will not open. (Word works just fine.)

Can anyone help?
Thanks so much!
diane

Dear Chip,
Through a combination of following your suggestions in "Startup Errors
in Excel"; remembering something that had come up when I first
searched newsgroups on this problem; and, perhaps, a bit of luck my
Excel is now working!

Moving the *.xlb didn't help, so I went to your startuperrors link. I
was able to start Excel in safe mode and went through all six steps
without success. But I noticed that one of the XLStart folders (Step
5)contained a PDFWriter.xla file that described itself as an add-in
(addressed in Step 4) and wouldn't move to the desktop. And I
remembered coming across mention of some trouble between Adobe Acrobat
and Excel when a friend who is more computer savvy than I had
introduced me to searching newsgroups. (We had, in fact, tried
uninstalling Acrobat Reader but it didn't help.) The same friend today
helped me outsmart the pesky file - for while we couldn't move or
delete the file itself, we were able to delete the XLStart folder
which contained it. After that, voila, Excel worked fine.

Another odd thing about that file, at first it wouldn't allow itself
to be deleted from the Recycle Bin (i.e., when we tried to delete the
folder, we got the usual error message "cannot delete" that particular
file). But after deleting some other stuff (detritus from the Temp
Folder), that one went without a whimper.

So, I couldn't have done it without you - thank you so much for the
help. And I wanted to pass on this other part of the problem solving.

Take good care,

diane


"Chip Pearson" wrote in message ...
Diane,

It is possible that your toolbar customization file is corrupt. Search for
a file named *.xlb (its actual name and location may vary) and move it to
another location such as the desktop. Then try staring Excel. If Excel
starts normally without error, the cause was a corrupted file.

See http://www.cpearson.com/excel/startuperrors.htm for more details.

--
Cordially,
Chip Pearson
Microsoft MVP - Excel
www.cpearson.com



"diane" wrote in message
om...
I've been using Windows 98SE with Office 2000 for two years without a
problem. Now, suddenly, when I try to open Excel, I get the message
"This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut
down." Message details explain "EXCEL executed an invalid instruction
in module VBE6.DLL."

While searching the newsgroups, I discovered quite a number of
messages containing "VBE6.dll," but none that seemed to address my
problem.

The only recent change to my computer was to upgrade to Acrobat Reader
5.1 from an earlier 4.x version.

I've uninstalled and re-installed -- and attempted to repair the
installation of Excel. And now I've uninstalled Acrobat Reader. But
Excel still will not open. (Word works just fine.)

Can anyone help?
Thanks so much!
diane