I having trouble with Excel 2002 on my folks machine (a 600Mhz Celeron with 256Mb RAM running Windows XP SP1a). What's happening is that normally, when you double-click an excel file in Explorer, Excel will start and load the file but now, for some reason it doesn't. Excel loads, but the file won't. You can open the file manually from with Excel afterward so it hasn't hung up, it just won't load the file. I've repaired office, reinstalled it and even uninstalled and reinstalled it manually but still nothing. Short of a complete reformat, is there anything I can do to fix this?

the only thing i can think of the the file association setting for open
this is what mine looks like
the app line is too long so i copied it here
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\EXCEL.EXE" /e
XLS

I just checked and that isn't it, the entry on the folks machine looks identical to yours apart from the fact theirs is installed in the folder "Office10". I guess my folks'll just have to open the excel files manually until I can be bothered reformatting it again...

After trying a couple more things (installing an Excel update, running "Detect & Repair" within Excel) I've finally managed to fix it although I would have like to have known exactly what caused the problem in the first place. I uninstalled Office completely, deleted the two main Office keys in the registry and upon reinstalling Office afterward, Excel files properly loaded when double clicked.

im trying to replicate that problem here at work.
so far nuthin
maybe just an anomoly

anti virus software trying to do a virus scan on the file and freezing?

turn off or disable anti-V and try it?