Grayed out Excel window

**Pedro147** · 03-02-2012, 11:31 PM

When I open a new blank Excel window it appears as normal, with just the top of the Excel window showing and the workbook window with the toolbar/s superimposed over the Excel window. So there are two sets of minimise/restore/close buttons and if you close the lower (presumably workbook ) window you are left with an Excel window with a totally greyed out window, with toolbar/s still attached that now says Microsoft Excel rather than Excel – workbook 1.xls

The problem arises when I create an Excel worksheet and then save it. When I later open it all I can see is the Excel window grayed out as I have just described. I can select the relevant workbook via the file menu of the Excel window, but before this problem occurred whenever I opened a saved Excel file it appeared just as it was when I last saved it.
Can anyone help me please,

Pedro147

p.s. - Link to cross posting - http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/o...7-03b11817834d

**royUK** · 03-03-2012, 03:50 AM

Is this happening with all workbooks? If it is you need to repair office.

If it's not then it looks like the IsAddin Property has been set to True

**Pedro147** · 03-03-2012, 06:08 PM

Hello RoyUK,

thanks for replying to my query. I installed Excel Lauchpad 2.2.0 (BitterMinion Development) as a free app to easily allow me to open two Excel worksheets side by side while I am learning to use Excel. When I realised that I had to purchase the app to stop the annoying pop up messages everytime I opened a saved Excel wb with it, I uninstalled it and that’s when the problem started with the grayed out Excel window. I contacted the app developer and he assured me that it was not his app causing the problem.

In regard to your suggestions :

• It happens with all saved workbooks
• If I open a new excel workbook it is all ok but once I save and later reopen it this grayed out situation occurs but as I said I can open any workbook via the file buuton in Excel
• I did the detect and repair function in Excel to no avail
• The “ Isaddin property” appears to be some reference to programming code and well beyond my skill level
• I have done system restore to two different points prior to this started and they both said nothing had changed on the computer so no restore had been performed.
• I have reinstalled Office 2002

As I previously said I hope I am not breaking any forum protocol by the way I have posted a question on the forum, if so I am sorry (this social networking is a wonderful resource but a minefield of toes for newbies to step on…) Thanks again Roy

Cheers Pedro

**royUK** · 03-04-2012, 03:56 AM

The IsAddin Property is in the VBA Editor.

Hold the Alt key, and press the F11 key, to open the Visual Basic Editor

You should see a list of Properties to the right, the IsAddin Property is there & should be set to False.

**Pedro147** · 03-04-2012, 11:54 PM

Hi again RoyUK,
I don't mean to take up all your time but I did as you suggested and the IsAddin property is set to false. Do you think if I reinstal Windows and then obviously Office this would solve my problem?

Thanks again Pedro

**vlady** · 03-05-2012, 12:00 AM

did u tried using ccleaner. upon uninstalling the

Excel Lauchpad 2.2.0 (BitterMinion Development) as a free app

maybe some of the "prog" or installation remained..

then repair excel -
/unregserver
/regserver

in run --"windows"

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /unregserver
then /regserver

**Pedro147** · 03-05-2012, 01:20 AM

Hi Vlady,

yes I tried CCleaner as you suggested but qoute:

then repair excel -
/unregserver
/regserver

in run --"windows"

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /unregserver
then /regserver

what do you mean by this?

Thanks Pedro

**vlady** · 03-05-2012, 01:29 AM

try to paste this

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /unregserver -Forces Excel to unregister itself

start - run area

then "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /regserver -Forces Excel to register itself

afterwards

there are switches then that can be used/

/o
/e

you can google the switches.

**Pedro147** · 03-06-2012, 02:22 AM

Hi Vlady,

thank you so much for putting me on the path to solving my problem. After trying to to get Excel to unregister / reregister itself which did not work, googling switches etc , seeing if there were addins or COM addins that could be disabled, I determined that if Excel was started in safe mode and then I tried to open the saved workbooks that were "grayed out" they opened perfectly. Then via a Microsoft article I tried Excel/tools/options/general/ignore other applications and "hey presto" all my saved workbooks open. I can only assume (rightly or wrongly) that the Excel Lauchpad 2.2.0 I had installed was the "other application" that I set to ignore in Excel tools etc. So once again thank you to yourself and RoyUK for taking the time to help me sort this out,

Pedro.