Excel 2013 Starting With Two Windows?

Anonymous
2013-03-03T19:48:44+00:00

Upon installation of Office 2013 yesterday, I have found in a day that Excel starts with Two Windows, i.e. one is the application with no Book, while the other offering to select from a collection of templates, from which if I select Blank Workbook, the blank one window remains to be opened, while the other operating one opens with a default template instead of the Book.xltx & Sheet.xltx placed in XLStart folder of Office15? Even upon exiting I need to close both the windows separately, in other words using Alt+F4 twice.

Any idea, what might be causing the trouble?

Thanx in advance.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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Anonymous
2013-03-04T12:13:14+00:00

Hello Faraz,

Thank you for contacting Microsoft community. We are glad to assist you with your concern.

As per the description, looks like the Excel application starts in two windows.

To resolve the issue, let us open Excel in application safe and check how they work.

To do that, press the ‘Windows + R’ key on the keyboard.

In the Run open box type in ‘Excel /safe’ and hit ok.

Note: There is a space between Excel and /.

If application safe mode works, try disabling the add-ins associated with Excel applications and check.

To do that, do the following:

  1. Open the application. Click on File and then click on options.
  2. In the Options Window click on Add-ins.
  3. Select Com Add-ins in the Manage list in the Add-ins section and click Go. Now uncheck the all the add-ins and click Ok.

You may also refer to the section Additional troubleshooting in the following article and check if it helps:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/280504

If you still have questions, you can always reply and I’ll be happy to assist you.

Thank you

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Anonymous
2013-07-18T16:53:50+00:00

Here's what finally appears to have worked for me. I suspected that it had something to do with the PERSONAL.XLSB workbook so after closing a regular workbook and getting the blank gray window I went to View>Window and found that Unhide was the only option so I clicked that and then Hide and saved the change and now everything closes as it should.

Bloody annoying that no one in MS support has been any help on this.

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-10-01T16:24:33+00:00

    I copied this info from an Excel 2007 Forum found here:

    http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2007-office_install/opening-wordexcel-document-opens-second-blank/2eadcb0c-7d87-4c89-bf94-496e2c8a6a62

    1. Click on Start > Computer and then click on the Organize menu on the top left hand corner to select Folder and Search Options**.**

    2. On the View ****tab, select the option Show hidden file, folders and drives ****then on OK

    3. Try opening an Excel document and see if the blank window opens.

    If the issue gets resolved, follow Step 1 then for Step 2 select Don’t show hidden files and folders, or drives.

    I had no need, as the Excel 2007 forum suggested, to delete any folders while in the “Show hidden file, folders and drives” mode. I was able to open my Excel documents normally again after making that simple change back and forth.

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-10-02T16:26:17+00:00

    I didn't find the solution in this long post. My installation of Excel 2013 was an upgrade from 2010. The root problem is with the PERSONAL.XLSB. I have years of custom macros and user functions, so deleting my PERSONAL.XLSB is not an option. I didn't try to figure out what is wrong with the current PERSONAL.XLSB. There may be something Excel 2013 doesn't like about its properties.

    1. This was my solution to fix the two window problem and keep my custom macros and user functions:

    2) Move PERSONAL.XLSB from C:\Users&lt;user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART to somewhere like your desktop and rename it to something like PERSONAL(OLD).XLSB. <user> is your Windows account user name.

    1. Open Excel, record a new macro, and store it in your Personal Macro Workbook. The macro doesn't have to do anything much because you are going to delete it later. So, for example, select some cells and delete them. Then stop recording the macro. All of this creates a new PERSONAL.XLSB. If you don't see the Developer tab when you open Excel enable it by going to File>Options>Customize Ribbon and checking Developer.
    2. Open PERSONAL(OLD).XLSB or whatever you named your old PERSONAL.XLSB.
    3. From the Developer tab open Visual Basic.
    4. In the project explorer you will see PERSONAL(OLD).XLSB and PERSONAL.XLSB. Drag and drop your modules from PERSONAL(OLD).XLSB to PERSONAL.XLSB. If you have code in the Sheet1 or ThisWorkbook Microsoft Excel Objects, you have to copy and paste the code from old to new one at a time.

    Now when you open an Excel workbook by double-clicking the file itself Excel 2013 will only open one window.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-10-27T17:36:45+00:00

    These solutions did not work for me, but I found a different solution!

    Go to C:\Users\ username \AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel

    If there are more than one "ExcelXX.xlb" files there, delete all of them except the one with the highest number in "XX".

    No more extra window!

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