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
    2013-08-10T05:01:39+00:00

    It's so easy, just showing "All" your data all your sheets. It is not an error of MS Excel.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-07-23T20:22:24+00:00

    Oh.My.God.  I started experiencing this with Office 2010 and thought it was me or my PC. I couldn't find a fix so bought 2013 after dealing with it for 2 years.  When the problem started again I contacted MSoft and opened a ticket.   I have spent no less then 24 hours in total with them while they worked on my pc remotely.  Uninstalled, reinstalled, registry key fixes.  Finally they told me it was my Operating System that was corrupt and ran a fix that took 6 hours to do... and the problem started again the next day.  I am baffled that there are so many people having this same problem.  I am not using data sets that are as large as many of these users.  I am keeping multiple sessions/workbooks open at the same time but less than 2000 rows of data in each.  I am actually really mad to see that this is a common problem since version 2010 and MS has yet to fix it and that I have spent so many unproductive work days (self employed, don't work=don't get paid) while they attempted to fix something that they knew couldn't be fixed. Even angrier that this is an industry standard product for me and I HAVE to use it.  I really wish I could just toss it and buy something else.  Mad does not describe it really after reading this thread...

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-07-12T13:09:58+00:00

    It is now 2013, and it looks like this is still an issue.  I work with many fairly big spreadsheets, and never had an issue.  My company recently went to Windows 7, with MS Office 2010, and now I can't even change the format of one cell in my main spreadsheet without getting this error.  Extremely frustrating since this is the basis of many of our work!  If there is a way other than what others have suggested, I'd like to hear it as well, since I've tried what I could with my limited "Admin" rights, and nothing seems to work

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