How to Fix Excel Displays A Blank Screen

We may encounter such a problem after using Microsoft Office Excel for a period of time. When we double-click on the icon or filename of a Microsoft Excel workbook, Excel starts and then displays a blank screen (a gray Excel window with nothing) instead of the file we expect to see. We need to keep this blank Excel window, double-click the file again, and the content of the file will be displayed correctly.

Microsoft has given the following 8 ways to solve the problem of opening a blank screen when double-clicking the file icon or file name in Excel. Please click here for details.

(1) Minimize the window and then maximize

(2) Unhide hidden sheets in the View tab

(3) Select Disable hardware acceleration in File –> Options –> Advanced –> Display

(4) Uncheck Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) in File –> Options –> Advanced –> General.

(5) Turn off add-ins in File –> Options –> Add-ins –> Manage –> COM Add-ins

(6) Reset file associations in Windows Settings –> Apps –> Default apps

(7) Repair User Experience Virtualization (UE-V)

(8) Repair Office

Fixed an issue where xlsx or xls files needed to be opened twice to display the correct content

Here I would like to introduce another completely different method from the above 8 solutions to solve the problem of opening a blank window when double-clicking an xlsx or xls file. Let's start.

Step 1. Back up the Windows registry.

Since the Windows registry is a very important component of the Windows system, it is necessary to back up the Windows registry before modifying it. I recommend using Wise Care 365, Wise Registry Cleaner, or other registry backup tools. Here I will use Wise Care 365 as an example.

If you have not installed Wise Care 365, please click here to download and install the latest version of Wise Care 365.

Open Wise Care 365, click the Menu button in the upper right corner, and select Backup. In the dialog window that pops up, select Create a full registry backup.

Step 2. Open Registry Editor

Press the Windows logo key + R to open the Run window, then type regedit and click OK.

Step 3. Find the registry key Excel.CSV

In the left pane of Registry Editor, click the arrow to expand the registry entry and find HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.CSV\shell\Open\command

Step 4. Modify the value of the registry key Excel.CSV

Double-click (Default) in the right pane, change /dde to "%1", and click OK to apply changes. The correct value is "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Root\Office16\EXCEL.EXE" "%1"

Step 5. Find the registry key Excel.Sheet.12

In the left pane of Registry Editor, click the arrow to expand the registry entry and find HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\command

Step 6. Modify the value of the registry key Excel.Sheet.12

Double-click (Default) in the right pane, change /dde to "%1", and click OK to apply changes. The correct value is "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Root\Office16\EXCEL.EXE" "%1"

Step 7. Find the registry key .xls

In the left pane of Registry Editor, click the arrow to expand the registry entry and find HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.xls

Step 8. Modify the value of the registry key .xls

Double-click (Default) in the right pane, and change Excel.Sheet.8 to Excel.Sheet.12, and click OK to apply changes.

All steps are done! Try it now by double-clicking on an xlsx or xls file!

Conclusion

xlsx is the extension for files created by Excel 2010 and later versions of Excel, and xls is the extension for files created by Excel 2007 and earlier versions of Excel. If you do not need to open xls files or open xls files without a blank window, you can ignore step 7 and step 8.

If you are interested in the difference between XLSX and XLS, please refer to this article Differences between xls, xlsx, xlsm, xlsb and csv