Last Updated on December 1, 2019 by Christopher G Mendla
I needed to open a file in Excel 2007 on my Windows 7 machine. The open dialog would not appear and excel would lock up. If I tried to close it, I got an error that excel could not be closed.
I tried opening excel in safe mode and that didn’t work either.
Some forums indicated that you should delete .xlb files in the application data folder. When I tried to access the folder, I got a ‘permission denied’. I was able to access the folder by simply typing %appdata% in the search box. There was no xlb file to delete. When I tried to deactivate the three COM addins I had, I got an error that said I had to be an administrator, even though I am an administrator.
I was finally able to get excel to work by the following:
- Find the microsoft folder in All Programs
- Change the compatibility tab to open excel compatible with Windows XP SP 3 and check the ‘run as administrator’ box.
- Open excel and go to the add ins manager and uncheck any COM addins.
- Close excel
- Reopen and try opening a document. The dialog box appeared
- Close excel
- Uncheck the compatibility and ‘run as administrator’ boxes.
- Restart excel
- Try opening a document – it took a few moments for the dialog box to appear.
- Re-enable the COM addins you disabled.
- Try opening a document again – In my case, the dialog box appeared.