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
    2010-10-06T14:54:53+00:00

    I get this message when doing data-sort, a function I have done successfully hundreds of time previously with this same spreadsheet.

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  2. Anonymous
    2010-12-09T09:06:02+00:00

    If your number of records is going to continue to increase then you need to be moving to something like Access very shortly, bit the bullet, excel is not designed for this purpose. The time it must take to simple tasks must be so frustrating.

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  3. Anonymous
    2010-12-27T20:31:36+00:00

    I have the same problem, but both those folders are already completely empty on my PC. I have a small spreadsheet (4 megs, larger than most i have, but still quite small) on slightly older Pentium 4 machine with 2 GB RAM. How could I possibly not have the computing power to work with this? I can't even delete a row or paste cut/copied cells on this one particular sheet. Please help. I suppose it should be noted that this spreadsheet was generated by a report from QuickBooks, my customer list for an area...

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