Excel dragging other files into the party...

July 15, 2007 1:17 PM

I've done something odd to Excel. Please help! (more inside)

While running MS Excel 2003 from a shared server, me, or someone in my office, appears to have inadvertently attached a few images and a document to existing Excel spreadsheets or perhaps the default "new". Opening existing documents also triggers opening what I assume are image files (names end in .jpg and appear to be image files stored on our server, displays as big sheet of gobbledygook) and also attempts to open a .doc file as well. (Error message says blah blah.doc: file format is not valid, and I just cancel.) This occurs both when opening an existing spreadsheet or when creating a new spreadsheet.

I can cancel the attempted opening of the .doc file, but the three image files open along with whatever spreadsheet I really want, and then when I want to exit Excel I have to close them and go through the usual "do you want to save" for each. I'm in and out of these spreadsheets all day long, and it's just a pain having extra documents/sheets/windows open.

I would like to excise these attachments, if that's what they are, and I am not sure how. Any advice much appreciated!

posted by Savannah to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Best answer: Sounds like you have some files in the XLStart folder. By default, it's set up locally in Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART, but yours is probably on a network drive somewhere. The instructions on that site should be enough for you to find the folder and move the files out.
posted by Partial Law at 2:04 PM on July 15, 2007

Response by poster: I checked that out, Partial Law, and cleared the "at startup, open all files in" and... ta-da!

Problem solved!

Thank you very much!
posted by Savannah at 2:17 PM on July 15, 2007