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