Excel Transparent Spreadsheets

Sk4f4c3 · August 20, 2015

Dear LTT Community,

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/office/forum/office_2013_release-excel/wierd-excel-2013-issue/5acb9122-f718-496e-9d0b-6196c12d3eaa?msgId=057e9072-bdac-4022-adcb-08bc382e94b9

one of my costumers got a really wierd issue with excel 2013.

The specs:

OS: Win 7 x64

RAM: 8Gb

CPU: i5 ~ 3.5 Ghz

GPU: Intel onBoard

Office 2013 H&B x64

Firstly I want to apologize that I didnt make screenshots of the issue.

Now for the issue:

When you open spreadsheets in your explorer, desktop, networkshare etc. The spreadsheet part of Excel will get stuck at the last thing that was seen on your monitor. When you randomly click into the transparent spreatshit and hit a field with data, Excel will show you the content of that field in the formula (?) bar. Also the selected Data will appear where the spreadsheet should be ontop of the "Screenshot".

However everything works fine when you first open Excel and then open the spreadsheet.

Logging into the PC with another userprofile and try opening spreadsheets worked (atleast the few I tested).

Disable Hardware Acceleration

Disable DDE

Quick Repair

Online Repair

Reinstall

created a new user profile

ran excel in safe mode

ran it in compatibilty mode

ran it as administrator

1.. Please try to repair your Office as a quick fix.
http://office.microsoft.com/en-gb/excel-help/repair-office-programs-HA010357402.aspx

2. Please look into C:\Users\User_Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel (replace user name with your user name) and see if is contains few files / folders. Move those files to some other location (i.e create a backup of those files / folders and delete all files / folders from here). Hence, make Excel folder blank.

Now open the file and see if the problem disappears or not.

Note - to find Excel path, you need to find XLSTART path. Excel folder contains XLSTART folder in itself.

1. Open Excel
2. ALT+F11
3. If Immediate Window is not visible, type CTRL+G. Same can be also be accessed through View > Immediate Window
4. Type ""? application.StartupPath"" without quotes and press enter
5. You will have your path below.

3. Sometimes, this is caused due to excel not being able to access the default printer. Close all office applications and change your default printer through Start > Devices and Printers to another printer. It may be some physical one or One Note or XPS or PDF or anything else. If this is the problem, then you will need to update your printer driver for default printer.

4. Many third party applications also cause the problem like Tuneup Utilities, Abby Finereader, Kaspersky Anti Virus etc. See if you have any of them installed. Close them one by one and see whether it helps.

5. Sometimes, add-ins can cause problems. To determine, if add-in is a problem start Excel in safe mode and see if problem has gone away. If yes, then start Excel normally and disable add-ins one by one and start Excel again every time you disable an add-in to determine the culprit add-in.

To start Excel in Safe Mode -

Hold CTRL key and click on Excel icon
OR
In the Search Box above Windows icon, type ""Excel /s"" without quotes and enter.

6. Go to C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15, look for EXCEL.EXE
Right Click on this, Properties, In Compatibility tab, check ""Run this Program as an Administrator""
Start the Excel. You might again get the error. Close Excel and uncheck ""Run this Program as an Administrator""and start Excel again. You should not get the error anymore.
(If folder path is not correct, you will have to find EXCEL.EXE manually, like Program Files (x86) may be Program Files. Or you can even search for EXCEL.EXE in your C: drive

7. File > Options > Advanced - In General section (go very much down in Advanced), check ""Ignore Other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)"". Close and re-start the Excel. Uncheck ""Ignore Other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)"". Close and re-start Excel again. You should not get the error anymore. (Basically, DDE should remain unchecked)

8. You may try to disable the Hardware Graphic Acceleration and verify the result:

Open Excel.
Click on file, Options.
Go to the Advanced tab.
Under the Display section, check the box for 'Disable hardware graphics acceleration'.
Click ok and restart Excel.

9. Login to Windows with a new user profile and see if problem is resolved.

10. TURN OFF THE PREVIEW PANE IN WINDOWS EXPLORER. If the preview pane is a must, you can right click and 'open' the document and not get the issue.

11. File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > Protected View > Uncheck all options

File > Options > Trust Center > Trust Center Settings > File Block Settings > Uncheck all options.

12. For one person upgrading Internet Explore did the trick and for one uninstalling the windows compatibility package that was left over from a previous version of office did the job.

13. Review the KB articles - https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2758592 and https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2779852

14. If none of above works, please uninstall the current installed Office, and reinstall it again. Before resorting to uninstall, make sure that you have the license keys.

To uninstall the Office, follow the instructions in the following support article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2739501 & http://support.microsoft.com/kb/971179/en-us

Note: Ensure to save the Fix it on the desktop and then run the file.

Nothing helped sofar.

Thank you in advance for the answers.

Cheers from Germany

Sk4f4c3

Edit: Changed the Topicname

Sk4f4c3 · August 21, 2015

Bump

Patrick3D · August 21, 2015

If the problem does not occur under a new profile on the same computer then just back up the user's data and wipe their profile and generate a new one. No telling what they did to screw it up. If the problem can be replicated on another profile or computer then the problem is with the file itself. Could be anything from a macro, VB script, or even something as simple as something having been set to hidden (check the View tab).