First Things First screen persistance

Question

I've had a new PC installed at work, with Office 2013. Whenever I open an Office program, say Excel, I am presented with the "First Things First" screen which I believe should stop occurring after my first use of the newly installed program. Aside from the inconvenience of having to close the screen, it prevents my accounting software from being able to export to Excel. My accounting system crashes on the attempt, and when I open up Task Manager I see the program "First Things First" running.

My company's IT  department has given up on resolving this issue, although it is happening to all of the other users in the company who get Office 2013. Does anyone out there know of a fix?

Also my version of Office has been configured to not connect to the internet (I noticed this when I tried to use Help). I don't know if this is contributing to the problem.

Here's the screen I get when I open Excel (and all other Office 2013 programs):

This is the error message I get from my accounting software after  trying to export a file:

And here is what Task Manager shows as running after the export fails:

I've tried exporting when I have Excel open, but it makes no difference. IMHO the "First Things First" screen is blocking the attempted export. I never had the problem before upgrading to Office 2013 and I am the only one in the accounting department who has upgraded.

Thanks in advance for any help,

A Frustrated User

Answer 1

The First things first window, if select Accept does that help?

See also (For your IT admin)

http://blogs.technet.com/b/odsupport/archive/2012/11/13/how-to-manage-the-opt_2d00_in-or-first-things-first-prompt-when-microsoft-office-2013-applications-are-first-launched.aspx

Answer 2

The other thing is that I already paid for this program, and now Microsoft  would not let me use it unless I accept additional agreement. There is no option to not accept. That's messed up.

Answer 3

When I click accept I am taken to a second screen:

I have to close both the "First Things" and "Welcome" screens before I can use the application. In an interactive mode I can do it (though it does get tiresome) but I think my accounting system export can't get past the two screens.

Thank you for the link to TechNet. I will pass it on to my IT.

Regards,

Tom