Excel 2013 starts up with blank screen when opened from explorer

I know this thread is a few months old, and you may have found your solution by now, but just in case someone else finds this thread in search of a solution:

Open Excel 2013 and select "Blank workbook" so you can access the File Menu.

Click File Menu > Options > Advanced

Under the Display section, check the box next to "Disable hardware graphics acceleration". Close Excel 2013 and double-click on a file to open it.

Worked for me.

These are the general reasons. Discard ones which you have already tried -

Option 1 - Please look into C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART (replace user name with your user name) and see if is contains few files. Move those files to some other location (i.e create a backup of those files and delete all files from here). Hence, make XLSTART folder blank.

Now open the file and see if the problem disappears or not. (If you need few files in XLSTART, you can selectively do it once you diagnose that this is the cause)

Note - to find XLSTART path,

1. Open Excel
2. ALT+F11
3. If Immediate Window is not visible, type CTRL+G. Same can be also be accessed through View > Immediate Window
4. Type ? application.StartupPath and press enter
5. You will have your path below.

Option 2 - Few users have faced problem because of .xlb file. Go to C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel as in Option 1 (This path is one level up of XLSTART) and change the extension of .xlb file(s) to omething else say .xlb1. Close Excel and restart Excel again. Your old .xlb file will be there in the folder so that in case you need it in future.

Option 3 - One user reported - I was also having this intermitttent issue and I found out that it is related to the Explorer preview pane. It only occurs if the preview pane is open and the xls file was never selected. Double clicking on the xls file opens 2 instances of excel (one empty). The second instance is probably the one used to show the file in the preview pane. Once the file have been seen at least once in the preview pane(during the current session)  the issue does not occurs, anymore (until reboot and/or some time has elapse. I guess there is some sort of caching). TURN OFF THE PREVIEW PANE IN WINDOWS EXPLORER. If the preview pane is a must, you can right click and 'open' the document and not get the issue.

Option 4 - Look if in recent past, you had installed any Add-In. Disable that and see. To disable, File > Options > Add-Ins and you can manage Add-ins here. - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/support/why-cant-i-start-my-office-2013-application-HA104011864.aspx

Option 5 - How to troubleshoot start up problems - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/280504/en-us

Option 6 - How to prevent files from opening automatically in Excel - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/826922/en-us

Option 7 - Login to Windows with a new user profile and run Excel.

Unfortunately, checking the box next to "Disable hardware graphics acceleration" did not fix the problem for me.

Hi Steve,

Thank you for choosing Microsoft Community. It looks like there might be corrupted installation files.

Let us follow the steps.

Method 1:

Follow the steps to repair Office 2013 Suite.

1. Press the Windows + R key on the keyboard.
2. In the Run windows type appwiz -> Click Ok.
3. Select Microsoft Office 2013 from the Programs & Features list.
4. Click on Change and repair Office 2013 and restart the computer.

Method 2:

If that does not help, then provide us the Event viewer log files generated for word application. Follow the steps to access Event Viewer:

1. One the home screen, right click at the lower left hand side -> Click on Event viewer.
2. Go to Application and Services logs -> Click on Microsoft Office applications.
3. Click on the error log file for Excel 2013 and provide us the log file.

Once you have collected the log files, upload them to SkyDrive and provide us the link so that we can have further research based on the log file. Refer the following thread on how to upload a screenshot to SkyDrive:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/feedback/forum/suggest/how-to-insert-an-image-into-a-post-at-answers/bdae0306-c3cb-4d31-ace9-7281ea1a8a73

Thank You

I've got one solution.  I'm using Excel 2013.  When I opened .xlsx files the main Excel grid was white (or grey).  Everything else in the Excel window was visible and usable except the actual cells of the worksheet.  Each cell still had it's content, it just wasn't visible.  If I would change the size of the Excel window by clicking the restore button the cell contents would then appear.  I solved the problem by replacing my video driver.  My video card was an ATI (AMD) 5700 HD chipset.  I had previously loaded the latest AMD (ATI) drivers along with all of the associated 'Catalyst' software.  I completely uninstalled all of this software.  Please note to do this you need to use the AMD uninstall utility that you can find in the Programs app in the Control Panel.  I then restarted my computer and let Windows locate the driver for the video card.  This driver, although not the latest, was probably the best, and certified by Microsoft.  Once I did this, Excel worked fine.  Moral of the story:  Don't feel  you need to get the 'latest and greatest' video drivers for your aging ATI (AMD) video chipset!