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Dear Forum Members,

I recently discovered a problem with my excel application. Whenever I am browsing the web with IE or Firefox I am unable to launch any of my excel spreadsheets (.xls/,csv files) by double clicking on them in my folders. There are NO crashes or error messages. The applications just waits until you close your web browser and immediately launches once closed. I did a couple of tests and found out that:

1. Excel can be manually opened if you clicked on it's main shortcut but NOT by double clicking on any of the spreadsheets.

2. Double clicking on the spreadsheet will only work if certain websites are opened. For instance, if I were to go to MSN.com and try to double click on my worksheet it does not launch. But if I were to a) close my browser showing MSN.com it will launch OR b) from MSN.com type in another URL such as Google.com the application will immediately launch. It seems that I cannot launch my spreadsheets ONLY if certain websites are opened. I find this rather odd.

I am currently using ms excel office 2003. Any advice, help or suggestion would be deeply appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Open Excel before you start browsing and keep it open in the background.