bizarre behavior in Excel

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sogn Mill-Scout
  • Start date Start date
S

Sogn Mill-Scout

When I open Excel I get a series of error messages
saying "<filename> format is not valid," where the files
named are ones I know nothing about, and then, after I
keep hitting ESC to lose the error messages, it opens
those bizarre and unknown files, some of which are not
even associated with Excel (e.g. txt or htm files). Weird.
I can't figure out how to solve this irritating problem.

The trouble started after I downloaded the free Open
Office suite which, as I understand it, is a somewhat
lighter version of Star Office. During installation I
accidentally selected the "make default" option, which
overrode all the MS Office file associations. I had to
manually reset them in Windows Explorer. However, since
then I can no longer open an Excel file from a desktop
shortcut or from Windows Explorer. I can only open them
from within Excel, via the FILE|OPEN menu. And, in the
meantime, it does all that weird stuff described in the
previous paragraph.

Any ideas? I'd hate to have to reinstall Excel.

Regards,
Sogn

Sogn Mill-Scout
(e-mail address removed)
 
Might not apply but also make sure you have nothing in your XLSTART folder
except Personal.xls, Book.xlt and Sheet.xlt

Amend that.......there may be a certain workbook or something you want loaded
from there when Excel starts.

Gord Dibben Excel MVP - XL97 SR2 & XL2002
 
Hi Sogn,

your first question regarding the error messages:
Check which path is set under
Tools
- options
--General
---At startup, open all files in

If a path is set, either delete or change it. Check which
kind of files you find there. If you want to use the given
startup directory, move all non-xls files to another
directory.

Best regards, Martina
 
Glad you got it working right!


Sogn Mill-Scout said:
My thanks to Ron de Bruin, Lady Layla, and Gord Dibben for
their suggestions. The first one I tried was Layla's
because it was the simplest, and voila! Problem solved!
Seldom have I seen such an annoying problem resolved so
simply. Thanks again!

Regards,
Sogn

Sogn Mill-Scout
(e-mail address removed)
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