EXCEL 2016 - There was a problem sending the command to the Program

Hi Abhi,

Thanks for sharing your experience with us.

Regarding this error message, please try the following steps to reset the file associations to check the result:

On Windows 7:

1. Select Start> Control Panel.
2. Select Default Programs.
3. Select Associate a file type or protocol with a specific program.
4. Select Microsoft Excel Worksheet, and then select change program.
5. Under Recommended Programs, select Microsoft Excel.
6. If Excel does not appear in this list, select Browse, locate the Excel installation folder, select Excel.exe> Excel.

If the issue persists, please share more information with us.

1. Have you install Add-ins for Office?
2. Capture a screenshot about Excel Products Informationwith us.

Regards,

William

Hi AbhiRockie,

Based on your description, when you would like to open the Excel 2016 application, you encounter the error message "There was a problem sending the command to the Program". I suggest you check the following:

    1. Follow the methods in this article to try resolving this problem.

    2. Uncheck the compatibility options for Excel: Right click on the Excel.exe, slect Properties > Compatibility > uncheck all the boxes.

    3. If the issue persists, you may consider uninstalling and reinstalling Office 2016, in which case, all the settings will be default.

Regards,

Yoga

Try following one by one as see after every step whether it resolves the issue-

1. Try repairing your office installation

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Repair-an-Office-application-7821d4b6-7c1d-4205-aa0e-a6b40c5bb88b

2. Please look into C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel (replace user name with your user name, you can directly reach here by copy and pasting following without quotes in Explorer address bar - ""%appdata%\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART"") and see if is contains few files / folders. Move those files to some other location (i.e create a backup of those files / folders and delete all files / folders from here). Hence, make Excel folder blank.

Now open the file and see if the problem disappears or not. 

Note - If the above path is not applicable for your installation, you need to find XLSTART path. Excel folder contains XLSTART folder in itself (In case, your XLSTART path is not in Appdata)

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"" without quotes and press enter
5. You will have your path below.
6. Sometimes, this is caused due to excel not being able to access the default printer. Close all office applications and change your default printer through Start > Devices and Printers to another printer. It may be some physical one or One Note or XPS or PDF or anything else. If this is the problem, then you will need to update your printer driver for default printer.
7. In case, user is signed-in through Excel (extreme top right), ask the user to sign-off.
8. Many third party applications also cause the problem like Tuneup Utilities, Abby Finereader, Kaspersky Anti Virus  etc. See if you have any of them installed. Close them one by one and see whether it helps.
9. Sometimes, add-ins can cause problems. To determine, if add-in is a problem start Excel in safe mode and see if problem has gone away. If yes, then start Excel normally and disable add-ins one by one and start Excel again every time you disable an add-in to determine the culprit add-in.

To start Excel in Safe Mode -

Hold CTRL key and click on Excel icon

OR

In the Search Box above Windows icon, type ""Excel /s"" without quotes and enter.

7. Start the computer in clean boot and then try to access the Office applications, check the result.

Refer to the link below to know how to start the computer in clean boot:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929135

Note: Ensure to restart the computer in normal mode once troubleshooting is completed.

Clean boot is performed to disable all startup programs and 3rd party services on the machine and check if they are conflicting with the Office program. If so, you may disable the unwanted software those conflict with the suite or get them updated.

8. File > Options > Advanced - In General section (go very much down in Advanced), check ""Ignore Other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)"". Close and re-start the Excel. Uncheck ""Ignore Other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)"". Close and re-start Excel again. You should not get the error anymore. (Basically, DDE should remain unchecked)
9. You may try to disable the Hardware Graphic Acceleration and verify the result:

    Open Excel.

    Click on file, Options.

    Go to the Advanced tab.

    Under the Display section, check the box for 'Disable hardware graphics acceleration'.

    Click ok and restart Excel.

10. Login to Windows with a new user profile and see if problem is resolved.