VBS used to load an excel, but use HTA to display a splash screen while excel loads.

Hi everyone i have been up all night trying to get this to work, but i dont know enough about HTML / VBS to get it to work correctly.

I have a excel macro workbook that i normally open with the use of a VBS, this way all you see is the userform and you don't see excel.

the problem is its a rather large workbook, and takes about 30-60 seconds to open on our work computers. i want to display a splash screen while its opening and then once open, get rid of the splash screen.

this is the code i have been using so far.

see attached file.

another part of my problem is the BODY of the html get only applied once excel closes. and not when the splash screen first shows up, i have tried moving the body around so it was after the HEAD but that made no difference.

i also found this code - but i would only start loading excel userform once the splash screen timer ended, meaning the splash screen was doing nothing, and you still had to wait for excel to load with nothing on screen.
see attached file: splash test5
any ideas on using HTA to launch a splash screen then a excel userform, and then hide the splash screen would be really helpful.

cheers