Has anyone else encountered this problem? Receive an Excel file in email (both GMail and (desktop) Outlook 2016 (using a live.com account, not a GMail one) have been tested); Double click on it to open it. (Excel 2016 is already open); The file opens in Excel with that irritating little "Oooooh, very dangerous! Could be scary monsters inside!" message which, I'll admit, is potentially useful for files from outside the organisation which is the only reason that I leave it on. Of course, there's no point if it doesn't actually work. Then one of two things happens. Either You go to click the Enable Editing button and Excel completely hangs on you; or You get the "Excel (Protected Mode) {breathless pause...} Has! Stopped! Working! Pretending to check for a solution that has never once been found in my lifetime, please waste your time waiting" dialog. There is nothing wrong with the file itself. I have tried with two different files, both have a problem. In both cases if instead of opening them from the Email application I save them to a trusted location I can open them without problem. But opening them directly from either browser or Outlook completely crashes Excel 2016 in a way that it didn't with Excel 2010. Anyone else? PS: If anyone from Microsoft responds to this post, looking into this specific question , I'll be more than happy to listen. If instead they copy and paste a script about restarting Windows in Safe Mode I may just need to throw a shoe at something.

I just heard back from a displaylink tech support person. Apparently they are aware of the issue. He had me do a work around that has fixed the issue for me. Open a blank excel document. Go to file 3. Go to options Go to advanced Under Display Check the box...Disable graphics hardware acceleration. 7. Click apply. This has fixed my issue until there is a driver update. Thanks...Matt

As BreezyCool has suggested, you can download the latest DisplayLink driver directly from the DisplayLink site to fix symptoms like these: .... Hope this helps. Oh. Yeah. Massively helpful to those of us who (as I have pointed out multiple times in this thread) do not use and have never used DisplayLink software. You know what would really "help"? Microsoft, you, your own company, fixing the bugs in Excel that cause this problem. And, while you're at it, this problem that has been around for over 4 years now without even being acknowledged as a problem by Microsoft. And every other problem with Excel that you provide nothing in the way of a formal reporting mechanism for unless one is prepared to be gouged for money for what is laughingly described as "support", even for issues which were caused by a deliberate design change on the part of Microsoft itself and which your own support staff are oblivious to. Between an unwillingness to even listen to issues that Office users have (the absence of any formal bug reporting system), and a point blank obstinate determination not to fix your code to address those issues (see below), and a determination to bury your applications and operating systems in pointless layers of dialogs, you are sleepwalking into oblivion if Google ever improves Google Sheets beyond the toy software it currently is. (On the issue of Microsoft's refusal to fix issues like these, even if some obscure third party driver was the sole and exclusive cause of this which it isn't , how on earth did the Office team write the code so badly that it could be blown up by that (or even by hardware graphics acceleration come to that) anyway? And even more importantly... what, if anything, is Microsoft doing about it, right now? )

As BreezyCool has suggested, you can download the latest DisplayLink driver directly from the DisplayLink site to fix symptoms like these: In Excel, you might see "Cannot quit Excel" and then... "The file is corrupt and cannot be opened." In Word, when you open a legacy file, the file opens in protected view and then crashes with error: "Microsoft Word (protected view) has stopped working." In Outlook, when previewing attachments, you would see "The file cannot be previewed because there is no previewer installed for it." If you disabled hardware acceleration as a temporary workaround, you should re-enable it so that you don't experience performance issues with Office 2016: Open the Office 2016 app where you disabled hardware acceleration. Click File > Options > Advanced . Under Display , clear the Disabled hardware graphics check box. Hope this helps.

Just came across this same exact problem with a client. SP3 in a SP dock getting the same error with Office 365 running 2016. Did you find a resolution to this problem? I will be trying the disabling Graphics Acceleration trick as soon as the client is available. Bruce, Disabling Hardware Acceleration did the trick in my situation.

Excel 2016 (Protected Mode) Crashing When Opening Files From Email

Anonymous

Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Receive an Excel file in email (both GMail and (desktop) Outlook 2016 (using a live.com account, not a GMail one) have been tested);
Double click on it to open it. (Excel 2016 is already open);
The file opens in Excel with that irritating little "Oooooh, very dangerous! Could be scary monsters inside!" message which, I'll admit, is potentially useful for files from outside the organisation which is the only reason that I leave it on. Of course, there's no point if it doesn't actually work.

Then one of two things happens. Either

You go to click the Enable Editing button and Excel completely hangs on you; or
You get the "Excel (Protected Mode) {breathless pause...} Has! Stopped! Working! Pretending to check for a solution that has never once been found in my lifetime, please waste your time waiting" dialog.

There is nothing wrong with the file itself. I have tried with two different files, both have a problem. In both cases if instead of opening them from the Email application I save them to a trusted location I can open them without problem. But opening them directly from either browser or Outlook completely crashes Excel 2016 in a way that it didn't with Excel 2010.

Anyone else?

PS: If anyone from Microsoft responds to this post, looking into this specific question, I'll be more than happy to listen. If instead they copy and paste a script about restarting Windows in Safe Mode I may just need to throw a shoe at something.

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

I just heard back from a displaylink tech support person. Apparently they are aware of the issue. He had me do a work around that has fixed the issue for me.

Open a blank excel document.
Go to file

3. Go to options

Go to advanced
Under Display
Check the box...Disable graphics hardware acceleration.

7. Click apply.

This has fixed my issue until there is a driver update.

Thanks...Matt

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Answer accepted by question author

Anonymous

Updated to displaylink driver 7.9m5 dated 2/23/2016 and problem was resolved for me.

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88 additional answers

Anonymous

2016-03-07T08:05:16+00:00

As BreezyCool has suggested, you can download the latest DisplayLink driver directly from the DisplayLink site to fix symptoms like these:

....

Hope this helps.

Oh. Yeah. Massively helpful to those of us who (as I have pointed out multiple times in this thread) do not use and have never used DisplayLink software.

You know what would really "help"?

Microsoft, you, your own company, fixing the bugs in Excel that cause this problem. And, while you're at it, this problem that has been around for over 4 years now without even being acknowledged as a problem by Microsoft. And every other problem with Excel that you provide nothing in the way of a formal reporting mechanism for unless one is prepared to be gouged for money for what is laughingly described as "support", even for issues which were caused by a deliberate design change on the part of Microsoft itself and which your own support staff are oblivious to.

Between an unwillingness to even listen to issues that Office users have (the absence of any formal bug reporting system), and a point blank obstinate determination not to fix your code to address those issues (see below), and a determination to bury your applications and operating systems in pointless layers of dialogs, you are sleepwalking into oblivion if Google ever improves Google Sheets beyond the toy software it currently is.

(On the issue of Microsoft's refusal to fix issues like these, even if some obscure third party driver was the sole and exclusive cause of this which it isn't, how on earth did the Office team write the code so badly that it could be blown up by that (or even by hardware graphics acceleration come to that) anyway? And even more importantly... what, if anything, is Microsoft doing about it, right now?)
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Anonymous

2016-03-07T01:48:07+00:00
As BreezyCool has suggested, you can download the latest DisplayLink driver directly from the DisplayLink site to fix symptoms like these:
- In Excel, you might see "Cannot quit Excel" and then... "The file is corrupt and cannot be opened."
- In Word, when you open a legacy file, the file opens in protected view and then crashes with error: "Microsoft Word (protected view) has stopped working."
- In Outlook, when previewing attachments, you would see "The file cannot be previewed because there is no previewer installed for it."
If you disabled hardware acceleration as a temporary workaround, you should re-enable it so that you don't experience performance issues with Office 2016:
1. Open the Office 2016 app where you disabled hardware acceleration.
2. Click File > Options > Advanced.
3. Under Display, clear the Disabled hardware graphics check box.
Hope this helps.
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Anonymous

2016-03-01T23:32:48+00:00

Just came across this same exact problem with a client.

SP3 in a SP dock getting the same error with Office 365 running 2016.

Did you find a resolution to this problem?

I will be trying the disabling Graphics Acceleration trick as soon as the client is available.

Bruce,

Disabling Hardware Acceleration did the trick in my situation.
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