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jmm0706

5 Posts

4177

May 9th, 2006 21:00

Excel Problem

If someone e-mails me an Excel file and I click to open it, the Excel program opens but I get an error message: "System cannot find the file specified."    Also, if I click on a saved Excel file to open it, the program opens and no error message appears, but the file does not open.
 
To open an Excel file, I need to open the program and then open the file.
 
Any ideas?
 
Thanks. 

JRosenfeld

2 Intern

 • 

4.4K Posts

May 9th, 2006 21:00

Try right clicking on an Excel file in Windows Explorer, click open with (not open), click choose program, select Excel, check the box always use the selected program to open this type of file. That should repair the file type association and the necessary instructions for opening the file in Excel, and then you should be able to open any Excel file by double clicking on it.
 
If that does not work, try in Folder options, File types tab, when the file types have loaded, scroll down to XLS click on it to highlight, (if it shows a restore button click restore, the button will change to advanced). Click advanced, click on open, click edit, make sure the entries are as follows:
 
Action: &Open
 
Application used to perform action: "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\EXCEL.EXE" /e "%1"
 
Use DDE: checked
 
DDE message: [open("%1")]
 
Application: Excel
 
DDE Application not running: blank (no text in this box)
 
Topic: System
 
click OK, OK, Apply (if you made changes) or Close.
 
 
Note: Application used to perform action entry: The above is for Office XP; if you have Office 2003, instead of Office10 it should be Office11 (or check the path to excel.exe in Windows Explorer)
 
Edited to correct Application used to perform action (missed out "%1" at end of line)
 

Message Edited by JRosenfeld on 05-10-200612:06 AM

jmm0706

5 Posts

May 9th, 2006 23:00

Thanks a lot for your reply. 

No luck.  The system appears to recognize the file I'm trying to call up as an Excel file -- the Excel program is opening.  But for some reason, it can't find the file to load.  In fact, it seems to be taking the file name and splitting it into five or six different pseudo XLS files, and giving me a "cannot find file" error message for each one!

For example, I just tried to open "C:\Documents and Settings\update.xls".  It opened Excel, but then gave me and error message that "C:\Documents.xls" could not be found.  Closing that message  gave me another that read "and.xls" could not be found.  Then, "Settings\update.xls" could not be found.

I've never run into anything like this before.  I'm not dead in the water since I can still get to a file if I need to, but it's a pain not to be able to call one up directly.  (Note: No problem with Word files.)

Again, thanks for any ideas.

JRosenfeld

2 Intern

 • 

4.4K Posts

May 10th, 2006 01:00

Did you see my Edit (sorry about that).
 
That is why you should make sure the %1 is in "": "%1" The quotes are needed if the path name has spaces in it.

Message Edited by JRosenfeld on 05-10-200603:12 AM

jmm0706

5 Posts

May 10th, 2006 11:00

Thanks so much!  95% solved.

Now an Excel file will open by clicking on it, but I still get an error message saying the system can't find the file!

jmm0706

5 Posts

May 11th, 2006 18:00

Problem solved!  Thanks very much for all your help.

JRosenfeld

2 Intern

 • 

4.4K Posts

May 11th, 2006 18:00

I subscribe to Experts exchange news letter and the onr that came in today had this info, in case you are still having problems.
 
QUOTE
Getting Excel files to open
 
We've always had a bit of a gripe about this: Right-clicking using Windows Explorer and choosing "Open With" doesn't always work; Excel (or Word, or Access) will open, but it won't open the file. MtnNtwks finally got annoyed enough to find a solution, and posted it in the Suggestions topic area; we've reposted it here.
I just spent a lot of time troubleshooting a problem with Excel. I was able to find a solution but it wasn't easy. I'd like to share my data with others but since this is not a "question" worth points, I'd like to see this information posted somewhere so it can help someone else. Where can I post FYIs or other solutions that I'd like to share with the EE community, which are not the result of EE questions (no points involved)?
Here is what I want to post. Moderators, please feel free to take this and post it someplace it would be useful to someone.
Symptoms:
1. Using Windows Explorer or otherwising browsing to the location of an Excel file, double clicking on the file will open Excel, but the workbook never opens.
2. Right mouse click on an Excel file, then select "open with" and choose Excel. An error message appears which says the file cannot be found, please check the path.
3. However ... If you first open Excel, then from within Excel say "File/Open" and browse to the file, the workbook will open just fine without any problems. Therefore it's not a show-stopper...just an annoyance.
 
Before posting here, I did a lot of research. Below are the posted links which relate to this problem. Many of the solutions refer to registry entries of older version of Excel. However, the affected computer did not have any older version of Excel. Other postings refer to a %1 at the end of the "open" command in the registry. Once again, the affected computer did not share this condition.
The MS KB articles correctly identify my symptoms, but the solutions don't match up with the conditions on the affected computer.
 
After much research, I found the winnng solution at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211494/
 
Hope this helps someone.
UNQUOTE

abach

1.7K Posts

May 12th, 2006 00:00

Excellent post, Jean. I'm constantly trying to learn "fixes" for Office problems, and this is a new one. Sometimes I cannot figure out why Microsoft includes some options, like ignore DDE requests. However, I'm putting this into my own knowledge base (I call it my memory, and, at 56, it is almost filled).

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