work book locking (Vista, Excel 2003 SP3)

[steveh]

Evening all

All of a sudden (the last 2 days or so) whenever I 'tab' out of a cell with a formula I get the Vista blue spinning circle and at the top of the worksheet the not responding message and no matter how long I wait I eventually have to force a shutdown and lose the latest changes.

I have run a detect and repair but it still does the same thing, has anybody had any experience with this and found a solution?

[HansV]

Does this happen in all workbooks, even a new one, or just in a specific workbook?

[steveh]

Does this happen in all workbooks, even a new one, or just in a specific workbook?

Hi Hans

It is apparent in 3 or 4 workbooks that I am currently working with and not any new ones, it seems to be when I drag down a cell for example $A$63 and the change the 63 to say 80 and press tab to get the new value. 2 observations are

1. it worked up until a couple of days ago
2. When I work on the same workbooks in the office they are OK, the only difference seems to be that home = Vista and Office = XP

Edit: it has now happened in a new workbook :-(

[HansV]

Try the troubleshooting suggestions in Startup Problems by Jan Karel Pieterse.

[steveh]

Try the troubleshooting suggestions in Startup Problems by Jan Karel Pieterse.

Thanks Hans

That worked but it didn't seem (to me anyway) to do anything?

[HansV]

What do you mean by "that worked" if it didn't do anything?

[steveh]

What do you mean by "that worked" if it didn't do anything?

Hi Hans

I have no idea what to expect when I opened the workbook in the suggested way on the link provided but when I opened up my old excel workbooks I was able to tab out of cells without the workbook locking up so I guessed that by opening like suggested did something in the background that I could not see

[HansV]

Jan Karel's article contains lots of different suggestions. Did you try the first one - starting Excel with the /Automation switch? If so, there is an add-in causing problems, and you have to read on to see how to investigate it further.

[steveh]

Jan Karel's article contains lots of different suggestions. Did you try the first one - starting Excel with the /Automation switch? If so, there is an add-in causing problems, and you have to read on to see how to investigate it further.

Hi Hans

I used the first suggestion and then my old workbooks behaved correctly? The only add in's I ever have running are the anaylsis, analysisVBA, Solver and the ASAP ones.

[HansV]

Try disabling all add-ins temporarily to see if Excel works correctly without them.

[Jan Karel Pieterse]

The addins you mention should not cause any problems. Start Excel normally. Then try unchecking one of them. Check if the problem still exists. Repeat this until you found the addin that is causing the problem. If the problem still exists after unchecking all add-ins, then your problem is either caused by a hidden workbook loaded from the XLSTART folder, or by a so-called COM-addin. See the article Hans aready referred to on how to find out which COM addins load with your Excel.

[steveh]

The addins you mention should not cause any problems. Start Excel normally. Then try unchecking one of them. Check if the problem still exists. Repeat this until you found the addin that is causing the problem. If the problem still exists after unchecking all add-ins, then your problem is either caused by a hidden workbook loaded from the XLSTART folder, or by a so-called COM-addin. See the article Hans aready referred to on how to find out which COM addins load with your Excel.

Hi Jan Karel

To tell the truth I have left well enough alone as they say, I followed Hans advice by going to your site and did the run and found the file in office12 and I assumed that 'some magic' was going on in the background because when I opened my Workbooks they were all OK and allowing me to tab.

Thanks