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
    2017-11-21T23:54:44+00:00

    Hi everybody!

    My Excel was selected on advanced settings: Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE). After uncheck this, I fixed the gray (blank) screen.

    I selected this before to fix error "share with email" that says "General mail failure. Quit microsoft excel, restart the mail system and try again", but this error was fixed repairing Office installation.

    At. Joaquim

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  2. Anonymous
    2017-11-03T14:13:46+00:00

    Option 2 worked for me.  It also fixed the preview pane for both Word and Excel in Explorer.

    Thank you!

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  3. Anonymous
    2017-04-03T11:24:07+00:00

    Thanks. worked for me, combined with

    excel options > General > 

    turn off "Enable Live Preview" at userinterface options.

    Got rid of al crashes due to previews in explorer.

    Could be text descriptions are a bit different than above, I use a dutch version and translated it myself to what I think the commands will be.

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  4. Anonymous
    2017-02-21T18:58:08+00:00

    For my situation:

    I have isolated the cause of the problem to be the custom start up workbook I use "book.xltx".  When I have this in the start up folder, I get the blank screen issue for any file I open up.  Like you say, If you resize, or click the formula bar drop down, it fixes itself, but that is horse **** that a workaround is needed.

    Look how far back this thread goes.  Ridiculous.  I have tried all possible fixes and nothing works.  Only way I get get rid of blank screen bug is to remove my start up book.xltx file which results in hours of extra work every week.  

    Absolutely ridiculous that this bug still exists, especially when it seems to have occurred in Excel 2013 and Excel 2016 (Office 365).  

    Fix your god damn product MSFT.  It is not some system setting, or some option that needs tweeking, it is your product's code that is **** up.

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  5. Anonymous
    2017-01-24T10:54:55+00:00

    not a fix, but if I resize my window slightly with the mouse it then displays ok.

    mel.

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