Share via

Some Excel files cause a 'serious error' when you try to open them on certain computers, crash and then close and when you try to re-open it is locked for editing by yourself!

Anonymous
2017-11-23T13:34:50+00:00

We have run into an issue when trying to open an Excel file which seems to only affect certain computers.

On one of these computers when you try to open it it get's so far and either gets stuck on opening loading Loading .Net Frameworkor crashes and closes straight away then if you try to open the file again it prompts you to open Read-Only because it is locked for editing by *you.*Sometimes you get an error message:

The same file opens fine with no issues on most other computers.

The only similarity I can think of is the issue only seems to affect users on Windows 10 that have done the Fall version 1709 update.  Everyone else can use it fine.

I can open other .xlsx spreadsheets fine no problem.

Can't seem to make any sense of it.  Any help is greatly appreciated!!

Many Thanks

Craig

Microsoft 365 and Office | Excel | For home | Windows

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.

0 comments

3 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2017-11-24T08:07:26+00:00

    Thanks for your reply.

    Tried with a different user and still getting the same issue.

    Was this answer helpful?

    2 people found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Vijay A. Verma 104.8K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2017-11-23T14:03:58+00:00

    Fall creator update has been causing some issues. Do below on only one computer and let me know the feedback.

    Login to Windows with a new user profile and check whether the problem still happens.

    If it doesn't solve the problem, we need to execute few other options.

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Vijay A. Verma 104.8K Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2017-11-24T08:20:44+00:00

    Do it only on one computer.

    1. Restore the Windows to a point before 20th October and restart. And see whether it works.

    If not -

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

    1. Try repairing your office installation (Quick repair is good enough)

    https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Repair...

    1. 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"") 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 Excel 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, add-ins can cause problems. To determine, if add-in is a problem start your application in safe mode and see if problem has gone away.

    To start in Safe Mode -

    Hold CTRL key and click on application icon and don't release the CTRL key till it asks you for Safe mode confirmation.

    If yes, then start application normally and disable add-ins one by one and start application again every time you disable an add-in to determine the culprit add-in.

    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments