Why are my excel popup windows transparent?

Jeff Boutain,

This is long-winded and may not help with your issue but may give you something to try like changing the size of the Object and see what moves, the stuff in the Sheet or the stuff in the Object that looks transparent.

In testing what is happening, save the workbook to a new name [ xxxxxxxx_Test_01.xxxx ]
In the newly saved Workbook, click on the SHEET that is having the issue.

Then go to the Review Menu and see if these two are seen.
"Protect Sheet" and" Protect Workbook" [ this indicates that both of these Protections have NOT applied.
Click on each and get them as described above.
I have seen where you need to "check, uncheck" or "uncheck, check" to get the setting to work.
In very few instances this can happen, not just in Excel, depending on how the code is written.

Click the upper left corner of the Sheet ( which should select every cell in the spreadsheet ).
Then go to HOME Menu / Format Cells and click on the TAB PROTECTION.
It's the place you make it a number, currency, etc.

Uncheck BOTH Locked & Hidden Check Boxes.

Click the OK button, then save the Workbook and Close the workbook.

Then, open the workbook and see if the Issue is still there.

I have a similar issue in Office 365 Excel on Windows 11 current updates.
It only seems to happen when I Lock the TOP ROW in view.
Then the bottom of the frozen cell shows through the Note I have made.

The note background is not transparent but the "frozen row bottom grid line" might be On Top of the Note.
What you see on the screen are layers of Objects and one Object may overlap another object and make it look transparent.

You can add blank lines in the Note and change the hight of the row and see the Frozen grid line move up or down over the Top of the Note.

Freeze Top Row...

Have issue...

This may help if people having the problem, try the above and see if they see the grid line.

If so, it may be that the object they are using may Not be finished rendering until after its properties have been completed and the [Print Screen] may force a refresh of the Excel sheet to update all components.

Hey Everyone,

I have tried the below-mentioned two steps suggested by Microsoft and my issue has been resolved. Now I can not see any transparent delayed pop-ups. The Excel is working fine now.

As the problem (pop-up dialogue windows transparent) can be caused by different reason, I will appreciate you can try the normal troubleshooting steps 1 by 1 below and tell us the result.

1.You can open your Excel applications in safe mode to check whether it related to add-ins:

Right-click the Start button (lower-left corner) in Windows and click Run.

In the Runbox, type the command: excel /safe, and click OK.

Note: To stop Office Safe Mode, exit and restart your Office application. It will start in normal mode unless there's a problem opening the application.

If this situation disappeared in Safe Mode, then this issue could be caused by the incompatible add-ins, you can disable add-ins by this way: Open Excel>add-ins>Disable add-ins. For reference: disable application add-ins and COM add-ins

2.Try disabling hardware graphics acceleration for Excel application 

start Excel application>click on the File tab> Options>Advanced> under Display select/click the Disable hardware graphics acceleration check box.

I have the same problem with excel2021 running on new computer with windows 11. Is there a permanent fix/patch?

Great idea but did not work at all for me. When exactly did we become beta testers?

This;

It has to do with the transparency effects in settings-accessibility-visual effects-transparency effects in Windows 11. If you turn this option off, the problem goes away. Seems like a Windows 11 problem but not sure it's not really an Office problem.

Thank you.