When opening Excel, lots of seperate windows open

Hi everyone, Just joined today in the hope you guys can help me out.

I've got a user that is having a problem with Excel 2003 Professional. Each time they open Excel (whether it be an excel file, or just the program itself) they get lots of random documents open.

I've taken some screen shots of what appears when they open up Excel. I've tried a re-install of the whole office package, but the problem is still there. I've had a google and I really can't find anything that can solve it.

Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks very much for taking the time to read this.

Screenshots (In order of appearance):

When I open Excel (just the program, not a document):

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After I click 'Cancel':

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After clicking 'OK' on the previous screen:

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After clicking 'Cancel' again on the previous screen:

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After clicking 'OK' on the previous screen:

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Then when I try and close the documents that have opened (normally about 10 different windows open), It asks me to save changes made, even though I've made no changes:

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Thanks very much everyone.




Edit: On the first 5 images you can see all the instances of Excel that open, even though I'm just opening the program itself and not a specific file.

Hello,

in your last screenshot, it becomes apparent that a file called "Negotiating with the dentist.wmv" is being opened from within Excel.

Check the file associations in your Windows system. What application is set to open wmv files? What files are in your Excel Startup folders (there are two of them; do a search, but make sure to include hidden files and folders)

There may be something going on here that is not part of a normal MS Office 2003 install. You may have caught some malware that is messing with your system, especially since the re-install did not improve things.

I suggest you get some good malware/virus checkers and inspect your system. A good starting point might be http://www.malwarebytes.org/

cheers, teylyn

I can't open the images but I suspect that he has saved the Workspace and when you open it, you open all the documents in the workspace at the time.

Does the "file" have an extension .xlw?

Are the workbooks cascaded?

Hi Teylyn. Thank you very much for your reply.

I am running a Malwarebytes scan now and will report back shortly.


Edit after seeing TMSchucks reply:

Yes the windows appear cascaded. Looking at them, it is opening random .jpg's, .pps and .wmv's out of her 'Documents and Settings' folder. The file I'm opening is Excel.exe. The same happens if I open a random Excel document though....i.e. Untitled.xls.