Excel Launcher 1.1 (9/1/2010)
So after some comments in the forums about my installer having problems I have updated Excel Launcher to use a new installation package (NSIS) and also made it easier to set the location of your Excel installation. NSIS did not support associating Excel files with Excel launcher so you will need to manually associate them using the technique shown at the end of this blog post. Please uninstall any existing version of Excel Launcher before installing this one. Download Excel Launcher 1.1
- Abandoned MS Installation package and switched to NSIS to stop bug where every time you opened a file a searching screen appeared.
- Running Excel Launcher standalone now prompts you to set your Excel installation location every time and not just the first time
I am a multi-monitor fanatic. If I could afford it I would have three 24″ monitors sitting on my office desk. Of course all this real estate requires good window management and fortunately Microsoft has finally improved theirs with Windows 7. Dragging windows up against the borders of a monitor causes them to fill either half or the whole monitor. This is fantastic for having side-by-side windows for work. You can also use the Windows Key + the arrow keys to quickly move windows across your monitors. Bravo!
But of course one of my most used applications does not support opening files in new processes. Excel. Why?!?! Why oh why must files always open in an existing Excel instance? This happens in other apps like Internet Explorer, but I can rip off the tabs and make them into new windows. Only Excel seems to cage me into this single window paradigm. After some googling I found a lot of people in the same boat and some very unsatisfactory workarounds including:
- Modifying the shortcuts for all of your Excel files so that they open in a new instance – I don’t always use the same files so this is out.
- Disabling DDE – which is no longer possible on Windows 7 and Vista
- Dragging your Excel window to be really big and then using the internal Excel Window management – not good for multimonitor
- Always launching a new Excel instance and choosing file -> open -> browse (sigh)
Disappointed, I resolved to manually opening new instances of Excel. But during a restless night it occurred to me – Excel does not open as a new process, but an application launcher could open new instances of Excel. What a fun programming project! I would create my own executable that would be associated with Excel file types -> xls, xlsx, csv, etc. That program would launch Excel and tell it to open the file. Bingo bango boingo we are in business.
So I sat down and within thirty minutes I had working code. I then thought it would be fun to make an installer instead of a dumb exe since there seemed to be so many people looking for this solution. Why not make it easy for them? I wish I had made it easy on myself. Four hours and many google searches later I finally have my program done and created in an installer package. In case anyone is wondering why it took so long I had to account for the fact that I am installing to the Program Files directory. With that comes access restrictions. Then I had to figure out how to read/write/store stuff to the registry. That required error handling. Auto updating research, tray application research, blah, blah blah.
Okay, enough complaining, this is what you are looking for. Download and install Excel Launcher. When you run it the first time it will prompt you for the location of your Excel application. This should be in program files or program files(x86): \microsoft office\officeXX\Excel.exe. Next associate any files that you want to open in a new Excel instance to Excel Launcher. By default XLS, XLSX and CSV files will be associated with Excel Launcher. To associate other files
- Right mouse button on an the file -> Open With -> Choose Default Program -> Browse
- Navigate to Excel Launcher.exe which should be in your program files directory
- Check the box for “Always use the selected program to open this kind of file.”
That’s it. Now whenever you open an Excel file it will use Excel Launcher which will create a new Excel process for you each time and open the file. As of now there is no argument passing so if you use arguments they will be ignored. If there is enough interest I may implement this for people in my copious free time.
Some ideas for improvements:
- Prompt user to associate common file types when installing
- Instead of storing Excel path in registry store it in an xml file in program files directory. This will allow multiple program types to leverage this functionality.
- Allow passing of arguments through to Excel
- Support DDE? I never really researched this so don’t even know if this is possible.
Tags: excel, new process, new window
Fantastic & great job
Thanks much!! After may days of searching and trying different things your solution works.
Thanks and brilliant
Many thanks for this. I am having a bit a a problem though. I followed all the steps you indicated but now the files are not opening at all. What do you think have I done wrong? Your kind assistance is urgent. Many thanks.
You can always reassociate the files with Excel. Just right click an excel file, choose Open With…. Pick Microsoft Excel, make sure that the ‘always open with’ checkbox is ticked and finally open. You can always force Excel to redo file association registry entries.
Click Start Button
Type cmd in the search field
Right click on the command prompt application and choose Run as Administrator
Navigate to your Excel installation location from command prompt
Type in excel.exe /regserver
Restart your computer and all file association settings should be fixed.
I will try this. many thanks…I’ve got a report deadline and I tried to default to Windows 97 because my Microsoft 2010 is only a starter and not all features are available. i think I’ve messed up the system and even though how many times I try to recover the system, excel would not open and the prompt is windows run in 2010 and then it does not open because i have not secured the licences. Really in a predicament now. Please help.
I tried what you indicated…typing the cmd…but it tells me excel.exe is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file.
I think I know what may be wrong. Excel 2007/2010 use a different file format than Excel 97/2003. They save files as .xlsx files which are not backwards compatible. If you have new spreadsheets that you created in Excel 2010 then you will need to open them in 2010 again and resave them as Excel 97/2003 files.
You received the batch command failed error because you were not in the same directory as your excel installation. You have to navigate the command window to something like c:\program files\microsoft office\office14\ directory. Then type the command. Not that I think it will matter because of the above issue.
Hi there – was searching for another problem I’m having and found your blog, so I’m hoping you’ll be able to help…!
i can’t open them from email attachments, right clicking on the short-cut files, OR going in via windows explorer!
All of a sudden every time I try open an Excel file (2010) running Windows 64bit it says it’s ‘installing something’ and then gives me the error….”error applying transforms. Verify that the specified transform paths are valid” and won’t open the file.
Any suggestions or solutions would be SO appreciated!
Thanks
By the way – i installed your Excel launcher thinking it may help and i got as far as running it, acecpting the agreement, saving it and then it asked to set the location which opened the location it seemed to saved in, and then…nothing…i couldnt open the file or get it to work…?
then i clicked on one of my excel files that had the Excel Launcher logo and it’s just hanging…won’t open the file either
Your Excel is broken. My program just opens Excel in a new instance. It doesn’t make it unbroken. Sounds like you need to either repair or reinstall Excel. I would uninstall my program while you are troubleshooting Excel as it will just get in the way.
Thank you so much for your solution. Pure genius.
Do you know if there is an equivalent solution for Microsoft Powerpoint?
Alvin
I came upon your fix for this irritating problem with Excel that Microsoft seem not to have thought about: The ability to view two or more spreadsheets side by side – as with word docs. – just by clicking on the file names. I installed it and – as you say – bingo!
Seriously impressed! Since huge RAM and multiple large screens etc. all allow this visually it is crazy that Excel does not allow it functionally – But TCS to the rescue!
Thanks
Amazing…..
Thanks a lot. Great work
No change by me to anything this morning but for some reason [ probably an MS update] Launcher stopped working. – back to the old ‘one Excel window’ problem. However I have uninstalled and reinstalled Excel Launcher and now it seems to be working again Phew!
Paul
No change by me to anything this morning but for some reason Launcher stopped working. – back to the old ‘one Excel window’ problem. I have uninstalled and reinstalled Excel Launcher and now Excel documents will not even open. So I changed the default “open with” back to Microsoft Excel. Now docs will open but back to the “one window problem” again.
Rebooted computer after above. Now can’t even open an Excel doc. … it just hangs and stalls the computer. I am going to uninstall your program since it apparently does not work in Windows 7 with MS Office 2010. Hopefully, uninstalling your program will get things back to normal and allow me to at least open an Excel doc.
My program is indeed compatible with both Windows 7 and Office 2010. I use it myself. Probably an Excel update caused your files to be reassociated with another program. You have two options, (btw rebooting isn’t going to solve anything as the program has nothing to do with the boot process.) One, uninstall Excel Launcher and reassociate your excel files with Excel.exe. There are instructions for doing this at the end of my blog post. Two, find Excel launcher in your program files directory and run Excel Launcher.exe. This will prompt you to reassociate the application with Excel. If neither of those solutions work then Excel itself may be broken (no fault of mine, my program does not touch Excel AT ALL). If you cannot run Excel from your start menu then Excel Launcher will never work.
Oh Dear, Its gone again. Maybe another Excel update. Have removed Launcher and re installed. Could not open any Excel files (only Excel itself from start menu)
but got a permanent ‘thinking’ circle. Re booted and uninstalled Launcher. Excel files now open but I still get ‘thinking’ circle and “opening excel files in Launcher” still appears in Task list. This must be something to do with ‘associating’ excel files with Launcher. I do not really understand that. There is some reference above about an explanation at the end of your blog – but I cannnot see it. Can you help|?
great app!
Doesn’t work when opening multiple programs from a windows jump list. 
Brilliant, thanks!
Great little solution to a problem that MS *should* fix, but probably never will …