Standard Troubleshooting

1. Start | Run, type excel /s and press OK.
2. If Excel still crashes on open, proceed to step 9.
3. Search for *.XLB (menu configuration) files and delete them. Try running Excel normally (not safe mode).
   If you haven't used the search utility, click on Start | Find | Files or Folders and answer the prompts. On W98/ME make sure that your view options are set so that you can see hidden files and folders. On 2000/XP, make sure that you select advanced options and search for hidden files and folders and all subdirectories.
4. Search for excel*.PIP (toolbar configuration) files and delete the Excel ones (excel*.pip only). them. Try running Excel normally.
5. Delete the contents of any XLSTART (auto startup items) folders. Try running Excel normally.
6. Make sure you have the installation CD for Excel/Office.
   Delete the registry key for Excel. Before doing anything, backup the registry. If you don't know how to, you shouldn't be doing this. Otherwise, follow these steps--
   • Choose Start > Run
   • Enter regedit and press the OK button
   • Right click the My Computer folder and choose export
   • Name it myreg and save it to your desktop
   • Delete the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Software/Microsoft/Office/[8.0,9.0,10.0]/Excel.  8.0=Excel 97, 9.0=Excel 2000 and 10.0=Excel 2002(XP).
   • Run Excel and you will be prompted to load the installation CD. This will rebuild the registry.
7. If the last step didn't work delete the key under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Microsoft/Office/version/Excel.
8. Open Excel in safe mode again and disable add-ins in Tools | Add Ins.  Try running Excel.
9. If this last step fails, try starting the operating system in safe mode by pressing the F8 key as it boots. Run Excel and see if it works. If so, there is something loaded that is in conflict with Excel. Doing this knocks out services and background apps that can crash Excel. We know of many and there's new ones popping up from time to time. This also breaks the network connection which is also the source of all sorts of problems opening files and starting Excel.
10. If this didn't work, try a repair installation of Excel. Before doing any installion or repair installation, always disable your anti-virus. Norton is known to cause installation failures in Microsoft Office. Also, check for the telltale signs of viruses on the system. For example, multple riched20.dll's (NIMDA) or the anything with the filename like "wink*.exe" (KLEZ). Run the on-line antivirus software at Trend Micro's site Also, look for previous installation remanents that may be messing the current version up.
11. Clear the temp folder. To do this Click on Start > Run and type %temp%. Highlight all the items and delete them. This can often fix problems that came using form designer which leaves leftover remenants here.
12. If your running Windows XP or 2000, try running Excel in a new profile. If it works, create a new profile and migrate all the data from the old one into it. If you ever track the issue down to it's source, write me. We still don't know why this is happening.
13. Next, look at video and print drivers. Has a new printer been installed recently? Those all in one types can have driver versioning issues. Sometimes, their drivers aren't compatible with XP. Try a different printer driver. (I know this seems weird to some but here's the reason--Excel is actually a raster graphics program as opposed to say Word which uses vector graphics. The printer driver is crucial to the display of the spreadsheet. The video driver can also come into play but not as often.)