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
    2011-06-02T17:39:32+00:00

    I see this all the time now on multiple PCs - it is ridiculous.  I see it when trying to open an .xls attachment in an outlook email and once it happens, you can't open ANYTHING in Excel without completely closing it and sometimes even killing the process then starting from scratch.  

    MS please step up to the plate and fix this it is a productivity destroyer!

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-05-11T14:10:34+00:00

    I just started getting this error yesterday.  I'm running Win7 x64 Pro with Office 2010 x64.  Trying to open very small Excel files as attachments and getting this error.  Installed several Win7 x64 updates over the last couple of days but nothing specific to Office 2010.  I have plenty of available system resources so it makes no sense.  This is very frustrating!

    BTW, I can open files within Excel so there does seem to be an issue with opening attachments and launching Excel.

    Microsoft, please help!

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-05-06T10:04:07+00:00

    I am having the same issues. The reason these answers don't seem to help, at least me, are the following: I have been using Office 10 since it came out, and this problem just started recently, won't go away, doesn't seem to be affected by the size of the Excel file, or whether I just just rebooted (Windows 7 pro/4 GB RAM), or whether I have much of anything else open, or have anything in either XLSTART folder. 

    Further, if I open the file from Excel file open, it opens, even if explorer didn't open it. Further, if I open it from explorer and say, use Open Office (libreoffice), it opens.

    Further still, the problem seems to affect Microsoft Access as well, because if I (now, just recently, last couple months) try to import and excel file that I have tried to open in this way, Access won't import it, with some equally dumb, inpenetrable message. Have had to link to it, instead of importing it.

    Frankly, it seems like a bug introduced with some random recent Windows Explorer update. It would be nice to see MS monitors here escalate this to engineering at this point.

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