A family of Microsoft spreadsheet software with tools for analyzing, charting, and communicating data.
For this Excel startup error on Windows, use this order of fixes:
- Update Office first
- Open any Office app if one will open.
- Go to File > Account.
- Under Product Information, select Update Options > Update Now.
- If Update Now is missing, select Update Options > Enable Updates, then Update Now.
- For Office 2013 on Windows 10, this specific error was fixed in product update 15.0.4763.
- Restart Windows and try Excel again
- Wait a few minutes.
- Restart the laptop.
- Sign back in and open Excel again.
- Run an Office repair from Windows Settings
- In Windows, right-click Start.
- In Windows 10, select Apps and Features. In Windows 11, select Installed apps.
- Select Microsoft Office or Microsoft 365.
- Select Modify.
- If prompted for repair type:
- For Click-to-Run, choose Online Repair > Repair. This is the more complete repair.
- Quick Repair is faster, but it only detects and replaces corrupted files.
- For MSI-based installs, choose Repair > Continue.
- Follow the on-screen steps, then restart the PC.
- If Office shows “Office is busy” or still will not open
- Wait a few minutes and try again.
- Restart the computer.
- If the problem continues, use the Microsoft uninstall troubleshooter to completely remove Office, then reinstall Office.
- Important: the troubleshooter runs on Windows 10 or higher and currently can’t uninstall Office 2024.
- If the problem happens only with certain Excel files
- In Excel, go to File > Open > Browse.
- Select the workbook.
- Select the arrow next to Open.
- Choose Open and Repair.
Best permanent fix: use Online Repair if clicking Repair Now inside the Excel error does nothing. That repair reinstalls the Office suite components and is the most thorough supported fix in this scenario.
- You may receive an error when running Office 2013 in Windows 10: "We're sorry, but Word has run into an error that is preventing it from working correctly."
- "Something went wrong" error when you try to start a Microsoft 365 app
- "Something went wrong" error when you try to start a Microsoft 365 app
- "Unable to start Office" or ”Office is busy” error message
- Open a document after a file corruption error