General Excel for Windows Problem Solving

When Excel starts misbehaving, there are some steps you can take to correct things.

It’s not 1990 any more, but sometimes closing and restarting Excel is sufficient.

Close Excel, delete as much from your Temp directory as Windows will allow, then restart Excel. Your Temp directory is usually located at

    C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\Temp

where username is your Windows user name. You can get to the Temp directory easily by holding the Windows button (between the Ctrl and Alt keys to the left of the space bar) while you type R, then typing %tmp% in the Run dialog.

Both of the above might be improved by rebooting Windows before restarting Excel.

Another place to look for rogue files is in

    C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel

Many of the .xlb files here are junk, but remove files named ExcelXX.xlb with care, because these are where your ribbon customizations are stored. You can get to the Roaming directory easily by holding the Windows button (between the Ctrl and Alt keys to the left of the space bar) while you type R, then typing %appdata% in the Run dialog.

Make sure there are no unknown files in

    C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART

These files open automatically whenever Excel starts. (This is where lazy or ignorant programmers tell unsuspecting users to put add-ins.) I often create an XLSTART_NOT folder for files I don’t think I want open all the time.

Clean out any files in

    C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Forms

These are temporary files that sometimes go bad. Don’t worry, if Excel needs one that you’ve deleted, it will recreate the file.

Don’t Have Peltier Tech Charts for Excel? Get it here: Peltier Tech Charts for Excel.

Back to Documentation Index