Error when double clicking an Excel file: Windows cannot find the file

Hi Friends,

Couple of days back i got an issue with excel when there was an automatic patch installation happening on my office laptop. Somehow my Excel installation got into a funky state where I had problems opening files from anywhere but inside Excel.

Windows explorer gave me this error message when I doubleclicked the file from anywhere (desktop, windows explorer, etc.):

-   Windows cannot find ‘path\file’

So i tried to dig into this issue and found the solution. I hope this will be helpful in order to resolve this issue.

1. In Excel, click the Microsoft Office Button (in the top left), click Excel Options (at the bottom of the menu box on the right), click the Advanced category, and then under the General section, clear the Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) check box.
2. In Windows, open a command prompt: Start > Run will get you the run dialog box. Then enter “cmd”
3. Navigate to the directory of your Excel installation. On my machine that is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12
4. Enter this command: excel.exe /unregserver
5. Then enter this command: excel.exe /regserver

I would expect that a similar fix would work if Word, Powerpoint or other Office programs end up in a similar state.

Cheers,
Prateek

Fix Blank Icons in Windows by Rebuilding the Icon Cache

If you’re using Windows and find that icons for common files are displaying as blank icons, it’s because your icon cache is corrupted. Learn, in this guide, how to rebuild the icon cache in Windows Vista /7.

To rebuild the cache, you’ll need to delete a file that is hidden by default. If you have not yet changed this default follow the steps in the next section. Otherwise skip to the “Delete and Rebuild the Icon Cache” section.

Show Hidden Files

To show hidden files:

1. Open Computer, press the Alt key, click Tools > Folder options…
   
2. Click the View tab, select Show hidden files, folders, and drives, and click OK.
   

Delete and Rebuild the Icon Cache

To delete the icon cache:

1. Open computer, type %username%\AppData\Local in the address box, and press Enter:
   
   
2. Delete IconCache.db.

To rebuild the icon cache, simply restart your computer. Now, you should see the correct icons again:
Before:

After:

Purge Stalled Print Jobs

Don’t you just hate it when your printer mess up ? I most certainly do. Every once in a while, a document get stuck in the spooler system. No documents will print. And if you don’t catch it right away you end up with a stack of documents piling up in your print queue.

Well you can perform this by two way...

1.Manually

First off: Make sure all print jobs are complete and that no new print jobs are being submitted.

1. Open Services.msc (Click the Start Button and type in: “Services” in the search box)
   
Locate the Print Spooler Service, and stop it (Right Click, Choose STOP)
2. Open an explorer window, and navigate to the folder: C:\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS
   
   (Copy the above URL and paste it in the Explorer Adressfield)
3. Delete the SPL- and SHD-files with the lowest number (which should be the file causing problems). Or to be safe, delete everything.
   (Files in the Printers are named xxxx.spl or xxxx.shd where xxxx is a hexadecimal number)
4. Now go back to the Services Window and Start the Print Spooler Service.

2. The DOS way…

Prefer using the Command Prompt ? OKAY, here’s how:

1. Open the Command Prompt as Adminstrator (Click the Start-button and type CMD, then Right Click CMD.EXE in the search results and choose “Run as Administrator”)
2. Type Net Stop Spooler
   (This will stop the Print Spooler Service)
3. Type  cd\Windows\System32\spool\PRINTERS
4. Type Del *.* (and Confirm to delete)
5. Type Net Start Spooler to Start the Print Spooler Service again