# Excel 2010 - Excel Opens Blank on One Click of File



## spark24 (Apr 28, 2014)

Most of my Excel files open fine with a doubleclick from Windows Explorer. I have two XLSX files however, that "try" to open when I single click. They open to a blank, grey screen - essentially they open Excel, but the file does not open. (I do see a quick flash of tabs at the bottom indicating the file is starting to open or opens and then terminates immediately). 

The problem is clearly not a "tiled window" or "window offscreen" problem - there is no file open. All the Excel functions are greyed out. If I go to File-->Options, i just get a blank grey screen. If I go to file --> open, I can then open any file. 

It seems that these two files have some kind of trigger property that starts Excel with one-click, but I can't find how to change that property. None of my other XLSX files act this way. :huh:

UPDATE: Further experimentation reveals that this problem is somehow linked to password protection. I copied all the tabs to a new sheet and saved as XLSX. This sheet works normally, i.e. I can click on it once to highlight it and it does not open Excel. I double click and it opens. But once I password protect it, the behaviour changes to that described above.


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## mliotta (Oct 20, 2015)

Do you have the "preview pane" on? if so, turn it off and you should be able to view the password protected documents properly.


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