Excel Won't Open A Second File

I've been dealing with this for over a year.  There are also several people within my company that seem to have the same issue.  I'm really surprised this has not appeared somewhere on this forum (that I can find).  Here is the issue:

The issue occurs when Excel already has a file open.  I try to open another file through Windows Explorer by double clicking it, or highlighting and hitting enter, or using a shortcut.  Explorer freezes for a brief moment, and the file does not open.  The status bar at the bottom of Excel does not show that a file is opening.  This can occur several times in a row as I try to open the file again and again.  Usually the file will open sometime after several attempts.  The issue does not happen when Excel is closed and no other spreadsheets are open.  I think it may only happen with older .xls files; also,  I get no error message.  I am using Office 2007 on Windows XP.  Both Office and Windows have all their updates.

I have also seen another report of this issue elsewhere on this forum...but it was an attempted take over of a thread which was dealing with another issue.  I am not sure if this is the appropriate location to post this "bug".  There seemed to be no correct location, based on categories, for general bugs.

I know this is an old post, but I found what causes the issue.  At least with Office 2013

Here is how to duplicate the issue

Open an excel file (I will call this File 1)

Open Explorer and browse to a location where you have other excel files.

In File 1 shrink the window so you can see both the excel file and your list of other excel files.

In file 1 double click any cell so that you see the cursor blinking in the cell waiting for input.

Now double click on another excel file to try and open it.  It should refrain from opening until you click out of the active cell in file 1.

Not sure how to fix it, just how to avoid it in the future

Thanks for all the great attention to this question...  This site is brilliant... an awesome site that really gets you the information you need, when you need it.  I'd like to invest in stock in this company the service is so great.  Good think the logo is all over this website so I remember exactly the name of the company that has such a frequented site.  When is a company too big, when it has zero time to offer to a consumer that has a defective product of theirs.  Don't worry MS, you're not the only one...just one of the worse.

Snarkity 3 Month Old Question Asker ( I think it's time to bring up LibreOffice to my company),

javahead76

Seems like a bug. I have reports of this happening in Office 2010 Excel, and I am able to replicate the issue in Office 2013 Excel. Book1.xlsx opens fine. When you go into a cell to edit (but not hit enter, the cell is still being edited), you can't launch a Book2.xlsx ... If you go back to Book1.xlsx and hit enter in the cell, then Book2.xlsx will load up.

The ignore DDE option makes things worse.

Still a bug in Excel 2016.  When a cell is being edited in opened spreadsheet Excel won't open another spreadsheet.  It will queue it and once edit mode mode exits on the cell all queued documents will open.

I'm sorry for you that you didn't receive an answer, but you have to keep in mind that although these forums are maintained by Microsoft, it's a community board whose members are mostly ordinary users such as you and I. People donate some of their free time to answer questions. Sometimes a question falls under the radar. That's deplorable, but you can't really blame Microsoft for that.

Have you checked that Excel is not set to ignore other applications?

• Click the Office button.
• Click Excel Options.
• Click Advanced.
• Scroll down to the General section.
• Make sure that the check box "Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)" is clear.
• Click OK.

bump...guess I'm flying solo on this issue.