Excel cannot complete the task with available resources. Choose less data or close applications.

Anonymous
2010-05-05T14:25:22+00:00

Excel cannot complete the task with available resources. Choose less data or close applications. the size of the file is 640MB with over 250k records. I have 3.25GB of memory. It takes 5 mintues for the file to open.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2011-09-07T15:07:34+00:00

I have been experiencing this problem for months (i.e., Excel cannot complete the task with available resources. Choose less data or close applications).  I am running Windows 7 and Office 2010.  The problem can occur with very small spreadsheets so it has nothing to do with the complexity of the spreadsheets.  After reading the other posts, especially the one from Chuthor, I began to suspect incompatibilities between Excel and other MS software that I've downloaded.

Anyway, I just uninstalled Windows Live Essentials and Microsoft Outlook Social Connector for Live Messenger, which came with an update from Microsoft on 4/7/2011.  This appears to have solved the problem.

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Anonymous
2012-04-09T18:19:33+00:00

We eventually opened a ticket with Microsoft. Apparently this is on their radar, with no real fix just this work around. The users were experiencing this error daily, and by disabling preview pane in the 3 necessar locations completly fixed the issue. Here is the workaround MS sent me.

Windows 7 is new with Preview/Details panes. These Preview/Details panes contribute to the "Available resources" issues, as well as our "Locked for Editing by another user" issues. We consider turning them off in these 3 locations as a valid test:

Windows:

1. Right click on Start Ribbon.

2. Click Open Windows Explorer.

3. Click Organize | Layout  |

4. Uncheck Details Pane and Preview Pane.

Excel:

1. Click File | Open.

2. Click Organize | Layout  |

3. Uncheck Details Pane and Preview Pane.

Outlook:

1. Open a new e-mail.

2. In the "Include" group, click Attach File.

3. Click Organize | Layout  |

4. Uncheck Details Pane and Preview Pane.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-02-04T20:02:36+00:00

    Can you please explain more of what you mean by just showing "All"?

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-12-16T20:08:50+00:00

    Ctrl + Alt+Del (windows Task Mgr) and end process for EXCEL.EXE*32. You will be able to open again those files.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-07-10T14:49:48+00:00

    I have the same problem with several users in our company, and we've now moved on to Office 365. We previously had no issues with Office 2007, and we're all running Windows 7 x64 Enterprise, and Office 365 32-bit. One of the spreadsheets in question is 970kB, with a single piece of information gathered from a SQL database via Query.

    A colleague who uses queries can get the error to show up within 2 minutes of creating a fresh spreadsheet, and trying to connect the query. It's not even down to the size of the file, or when it was created!

    I also just tried to raise a case with them, they told me that they couldn't help since it was a problem specific to one application, and that i should go to the forums, or PAY for a support case! Considering we pay for subscriptions for our users, how does that make sense?

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