Excel 2013 starts up with blank screen when opened from explorer

Anonymous
2013-02-27T17:34:15+00:00

When I double click any Excel file in windows explorer, Excel starts up maximized and I can see the ribbon but the whole grid area where my data should be is blank, no gridlines or row/column headers.   If I "restore down" the Excel window then everything appears as normal.

I sometimes get subsequent Excel crashes.

I also get an Excel crash by clicking on an Excel file in windows explorer, as if to preview it.  The Excel file preview function is not working since I installed Office 2013 Professional.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-01-30T21:04:07+00:00

    Hey guys, try this:

    Open regedit, navigate to HKey_Classes_Root\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\open\command

    Depending on the installed office, it can be Excel.Sheet.8 and/or whatever, so just have a look what entries you will find.

    Then edit the standard entry and replace /dde with "%1" like that:

    "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\Root\Office15\EXCEL.EXE" /dde

    ->

    "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office 15\Root\Office15\EXCEL.EXE" "%!

    That old works trick since office 200x ;-)

    The dde params often leads to weird behaviour when just opening a file and the setting within the app doesn't work reliable.

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-03-02T16:40:53+00:00

    Thanks, MinnesotaBob! Great solution, it worked for me for an Office Standard 2013 install on a Dell machine with Windows 7.

    In my case there were two graphics adapters, one AMD and the other Intel on-board graphics.

    A full uninstall and reinstall of Office did not fix the issue.

    Uninstalling AMD Catalyst and the whole junkload that comes with it, solved this for us.

    Thank you so much for sharing your solution.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-03-21T19:35:35+00:00

    I was able to fix this problem by doing a Quick Repair for Microsoft Office 365 Plus:

    Steps:

    Control Panel > Programs & Features > Microsoft Office 365 Plus > Click 'Change' > Click "Quick Repair or Online Repair'

    Restart... This fixed it for me.

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-03-29T16:04:52+00:00

    Beware Mapped Drives....

    For me this issue was due to accessing the XLSX file (actually any Office file) from a mapped drive.

    I'd tried everything listed in this thread and nothing worked.  I also tried downgrading to 2010 (which worked) and upgrading to 2016 (which also worked) but I needed 2013 for specific reasons.

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  5. Anonymous
    2016-04-14T08:58:13+00:00

    Option 3 explained my problem - if I right-click and open I don't then get the problem - Thanks

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