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LockDown32Flag for United States of America

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Multiple Open Excel Spreadsheets

I have a customer with 20 computers (Windows 10) connected to a SBS 2011 Server. They all run Office 2013 and they all have random issues with Excel locking up when they have multiple spreadsheets open. All the spreadsheets are kept on the server.

   From what I have gathered that seems to be a pretty common issue with Excel but that is ridiculous. People have just gotten use to Excel locking up and losing data?

   This one user has had these four spreadsheets open at the same time for months. Just yesterday they started locking up. He said he could save them but couldn't enter or manipulate any rows or columns. The cursors don't move. He has tried rebooting and doing nothing else but open these four spreadsheets and they still lock up.

   Aren't there any tips to keep Excel from freezing up when multiple spreadsheets are open?
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Edward Pamias
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Are the spreadsheets being shared?
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As a rule no. In this particular case none of the four are opened by anyone else.
I have 4 questions...

1.  How certain are you that the problem lies with Excel?
2.  Are all the machines up-to-date on OS updates?
3.  When did this issue begin?
4.  Did you have the problem with any earlier version of Windows?
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Edward Pamias
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This is more or less a repeat question I asked 6 months ago and never got an answer to. There is no consistency to the issue. It happens to different users at different time under different conditions. The only common thread is Excel.

As mentioned above I have asked several other customers  if they have had lock up problems with Excel and the overwhelming response has be "Yes. We have just learned to live with it and reboot". I can't believe people have let Microsoft off the hook so easy but they have. There has to be a common denominator somewhere.

As far as I can determine it started happening when they upgraded to Windows 10 but as mentioned the results when I asked 6 months ago were zilch. I will see if safe more works....
Well..... if you can believe the user safe mode worked. The same four spreadsheets that he couldn't have opened at the same time all day opened and worked find in safe more. So what does that indicate?
Just got a confirmation from a second user that Safe Mode is working great. So what does that indicate?
Could be an add-in that is causing issues. I would make a list of the add-ins then disable them. Re-enable them one at a time to see which one is the culprit.
I ran this users Excel in normal mode. Did a screen shot of the add-ins. Doesn't look like it is using any is it?
Capture.PNG
Once you get to that screen you need to hit go, and see whats active. There are other add-ins.... check the drop down and hit go on each of them.
I tried that when I did the screen shot. It listed 4 add-ins. None of them were checked but it looked like they were from the Inactive application add-ins from the screen shot. If there were any active shouldn't they show up on the screen shot under "Active application add-ins"?
Safe mode seems to work but for no apparent reason. They aren't running any add-ins. At this point probably best to start another question.