Error: There is a problem sending the command to the program in Excel 2010
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Tuesday, April 12, 2011 9:31 AMI'm using Windows 7 and Office Home & Student 2010. This error just started today. The solution in previous versions of Excel is not solving the issue in the 2010 version.
Answers
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Sunday, July 24, 2011 8:56 PM
Try this from another site I came across - it worked for me...
Go to the Office Button / Excel Options / Advanced, and scroll all the way down to the General section. There you will see the “Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)” setting checked. Uncheck the box, click OK to apply, and you’re good to go
- Proposed As Answer by El Chefe Thursday, August 11, 2011 3:47 PM
- Unproposed As Answer by El Chefe Thursday, August 11, 2011 3:47 PM
- Proposed As Answer by El Chefe Thursday, August 11, 2011 3:47 PM
- Marked As Answer by David WoltersMicrosoft Contingent Staff, Moderator Tuesday, September 06, 2011 3:23 PM
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Saturday, December 10, 2011 3:57 PM
Try this then (which worked for me--none of the previous ideas worked).
I;m using excel 2002 and win 7. So when you right click on the excel.exe file in the office 10 folder, go to properties and then run in compatibilty mode tab, click on 'windows 7' and exit.
My excel files now open properly with NO
There is a problem sending the command to the program
error.
- Proposed As Answer by Gus Sanchez Monday, January 02, 2012 4:46 AM
- Marked As Answer by David WoltersMicrosoft Contingent Staff, Moderator Wednesday, February 08, 2012 3:59 PM
All Replies
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Thursday, April 14, 2011 2:12 AMModerator
Hi,
Try the following steps:
Right click on Excel (.exe) > Properties > Compatibility > uncheck all the boxes
To access Excel (.exe), open the following location:
Windows 7 32bit: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14
Windows 7 64bit: C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14
Sincerely
- Proposed As Answer by Harry YuanModerator Monday, April 18, 2011 2:47 AM
- Marked As Answer by Harry YuanModerator Monday, April 18, 2011 2:47 AM
- Unmarked As Answer by David WoltersMicrosoft Contingent Staff, Moderator Tuesday, April 19, 2011 1:59 PM
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Monday, April 18, 2011 6:04 PMHi thanks, I tried that but it didn't work.
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Wednesday, July 20, 2011 9:26 AM
Hi had the same problem with Excel 2007, on Win7-64bit OS. I did the following to resolve
To access Excel (.exe), open the following location:
Windows 7 32bit: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14
Windows 7 64bit: C:\Program Files(x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14
Right click on Excel (.exe) > Properties > Compatibility >
1. Check the box Run this program in compatability mode for > Windows XP (SP3)
2. Settings > UNCHECK all the boxes
3. Privilege level> CHECK run as administrator.
This seems to work fine now.
- Proposed As Answer by Tero R Tuesday, September 27, 2011 9:27 AM
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Saturday, July 23, 2011 9:07 AMI run Excel 2010 Win 64 bit. Solution did not work for me.
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Sunday, July 24, 2011 8:56 PM
Try this from another site I came across - it worked for me...
Go to the Office Button / Excel Options / Advanced, and scroll all the way down to the General section. There you will see the “Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)” setting checked. Uncheck the box, click OK to apply, and you’re good to go
- Proposed As Answer by El Chefe Thursday, August 11, 2011 3:47 PM
- Unproposed As Answer by El Chefe Thursday, August 11, 2011 3:47 PM
- Proposed As Answer by El Chefe Thursday, August 11, 2011 3:47 PM
- Marked As Answer by David WoltersMicrosoft Contingent Staff, Moderator Tuesday, September 06, 2011 3:23 PM
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Tuesday, July 26, 2011 10:19 PMThis solution works for me. Thank you very much!!!
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Monday, August 15, 2011 2:53 AM
I have recently discovered the following:
There seems to be an issue with the WinZip Office add-on. When Office 2007 applications (I have tested with Word and Excel) are configured to use the wzofc.dll add-on, documents can not be opened by double clicking in Windows Explorer. When trying to open a document by double clicking the following message is given: "There was a problem sending the command to the program". Disabling the Winzip add-in fixes the problem in the office application. I am using Winzip version 15.5 on Windows 7 64bit Home Premium with MS Office 2007.
I have fixed this for me by running Word as an Administrator and disabling the WinZip Courier add-in using the Options, Add-ins menu.
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Tuesday, August 30, 2011 6:55 PM
Harry,
I did what you suggested and it did work for me. What I do NOT understand is WHY? The only box that was checked was "run as administrator"...why would having that checked cause this issue?
Thanks again for the fix!
C. Brown / NOLACHEF
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Thursday, September 01, 2011 11:53 AM
I tried all the other fixes from this board and others, and this is the one that worked for me, thank you!
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Friday, September 02, 2011 3:08 PM
dazbc's solution worked for me..
Thanks!
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Tuesday, September 06, 2011 9:38 PM
That worked. Thanks
Devon
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Tuesday, September 13, 2011 5:24 PM
Dazbc, your solutin worked for me!
Thanks!
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Thursday, September 29, 2011 5:24 PMThat's so helpful... thanks for all...
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Friday, September 30, 2011 4:32 AM
The error even happened after reinstalling Office 2007 base install from CD.
I thought it happened due to some Office updates but it could have been some Windows updates that caused this problem.
This worked for me as well the DDE
Thanks
ArkieV -
Friday, October 07, 2011 1:03 AM
MS Office - arrrrrrrhhhhhhgggggggg!
dazbc's tip worked like a champ. Like.
- Edited by microsfth8er Friday, October 07, 2011 1:05 AM
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Thursday, October 13, 2011 11:57 AMSuperrrrrrrrrrrr. This thing has been annoying me for 2 weeks now and thanks to your guidelines it's finally fixed. A big THANKS!
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Wednesday, October 19, 2011 6:54 AM
Dear Dazbc
i appreciate your brilliant work and it helped solve the issue.
thanks
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Tuesday, October 25, 2011 4:19 PMI have this issue with Excel 2010 and have unchecked the "Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)". I even uninstalled and reinstalled. Any time i double click an xlsx file I get "There was a problem sending the command to the program". I can open excel and then open the file manually. Would really appreciate getting this fixed.
KC -
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 9:34 PM
When you get the error, on the error window, open details and see why its hanging. In the list you see it is waiting on something, that will indicate your problem.
For my computer, it was waiting on spool, which is printing, so I unplugged the printer, and all is fixed.
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Tuesday, October 25, 2011 11:42 PM
THe error dialog just has a red X in a circle, the title is the name o fthe spreadsheet, the text is "There was a problem sending the command to the program.", there's an X to close the dialog and an OK button. That's it, no pull down list or other informaiton in the dialog. Nothing if i right click in the dialog area, Move or Close if I right click in the title. I can click on Excel while the dialog is open.
Using process explorer I see the command line for the excel app is the normal path to excel and "excel.exe /dde".
And the error dialog is explorer.
KC -
Wednesday, October 26, 2011 12:40 AM
I see. Mine was diff.
My problem is gone for the time being, but I had seen a list.
Just wondering if: unplug all ports, usb, firewires, network, etc... then restart comp, run program, and then plug everything back in.
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Friday, October 28, 2011 4:07 PMThis solution worked on the first attempt. I have Excel2007 (12.0....5003) SP2. Thanks!
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Tuesday, November 15, 2011 11:02 AMThis was the solution for me! Thanks very much!
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Tuesday, November 15, 2011 3:58 PM
My solution, after trying everything else, was to remove Office, spend 2 hours deleting every reference to "excel" or "xls" in the registry and then reinstalling. :(
Amazing how many entries are left in the registry after doing an uninstall.
KC -
Tuesday, November 29, 2011 10:27 PM
This solution fixes the problem, but it creates another problem.
With this option checked every Excel file I open, creates a new Excel instance, so I can have different Excel files open on different monitors.
With this option unchecked all of my open Excel files are in one instance, so I can't place them in different monitors.
Can I have the problem fixed and enable the ability to place open Excel files in different monitors?
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Monday, December 05, 2011 10:04 PMThis was driving one of our users crazy. Fixed it easily with this solution, thanks! Now to investigate what caused the problem...
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Saturday, December 10, 2011 3:57 PM
Try this then (which worked for me--none of the previous ideas worked).
I;m using excel 2002 and win 7. So when you right click on the excel.exe file in the office 10 folder, go to properties and then run in compatibilty mode tab, click on 'windows 7' and exit.
My excel files now open properly with NO
There is a problem sending the command to the program
error.
- Proposed As Answer by Gus Sanchez Monday, January 02, 2012 4:46 AM
- Marked As Answer by David WoltersMicrosoft Contingent Staff, Moderator Wednesday, February 08, 2012 3:59 PM
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Saturday, January 07, 2012 3:52 PMIt works for me. Great!!! I was pulling my hair this morning. Thanks!!!
- Proposed As Answer by Ndugwa Monday, January 09, 2012 2:44 PM
- Unproposed As Answer by David WoltersMicrosoft Contingent Staff, Moderator Monday, January 09, 2012 6:23 PM
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Monday, January 09, 2012 2:46 PM
Thanks Dazbc.
This works
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Friday, January 13, 2012 2:41 AM
This works! :) Many Thanks!Try this from another site I came across - it worked for me...
Go to the Office Button / Excel Options / Advanced, and scroll all the way down to the General section. There you will see the “Ignore other applications that use Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE)” setting checked. Uncheck the box, click OK to apply, and you’re good to go
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Monday, January 16, 2012 10:12 PMThe problem with the solution is that by unchecking Ignore other applications that use DDE, if you want to open up different spreadsheets in multiple instances of Excel, you cant. They will open in the same instance. So if you are using dual screens for example, and you want one spreadsheet open on each monitor you cant do it. This is the answer I am looking for in case anyone knows. Thanks.
- Edited by banndito Monday, January 16, 2012 10:13 PM
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012 5:42 PMModerator
banndito,
Try the answers in this thread:
Hope this helps,
David
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Saturday, February 04, 2012 4:10 AM
Dazbc!
Thanks, worked for me first time.
Forever
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Tuesday, February 07, 2012 8:59 AM
As with most software issues, one size doesn't fit all despite what is marked as the correct answer, which is actually "one answer". The Fixit Man's solution worked for me on Windows 7 x64, setting the exe to run in Windows 7 compatability mode worked like a charm.
I tried to mark up The Fixit Man's solution but a javascript pop up appeared informing me of an 'unexpected error'. Looks like MS have two things to fix now.
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Wednesday, February 08, 2012 12:42 AM
This resolved my issue. Thanks!
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Wednesday, February 08, 2012 5:12 PM
I know Project 2007 isn't part of the standard Office suite - but I have multiple users in a corporate environment that are having this issue as well... but I don't see any way to disable DDE from within Project. Any Ideas?
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Wednesday, February 15, 2012 10:13 AM
Worked for me too.
Any technical explanation why this happened suddenly ?
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Wednesday, February 15, 2012 10:50 PM
I had the issue and the Ignore DDE trick didn't work. I identified the solution eveneutally related to a recent install of Visual Studio. It had added two new COM Add-ons into Excel. I went to the Excel options and disabled the add-ons and it works fine now.
So if the DDE option doesn't work, I suggest you check for add-ons that relate to any recent software you've installed and try disabling them!
- Edited by Ed Solman Wednesday, February 15, 2012 10:50 PM
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Thursday, February 16, 2012 2:58 AMIf you have Word viewer installed - just uninstall it. It solved my problem. Because, the file association it had before with the .docx to the Word viewer does not get re-associated properly with the full version of Word.
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Wednesday, February 22, 2012 5:43 AM
HI , I tried with Excel 2007 with Win7 64 bit. Its solved my problem. Thanks
Andiappan
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Thursday, February 23, 2012 1:14 PM
Thanks My excel is now working.
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Sunday, March 04, 2012 6:49 AMThank you so much, it worked for me
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Sunday, March 18, 2012 1:43 AM
Thank you very much. It works! Question is, Why should this happen?
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Wednesday, March 21, 2012 7:36 AM
MS release a tool to fix that problem. It works well to me.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211494
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Tuesday, March 27, 2012 5:21 PMI recently had the same problem running Excel 2007 with Windows 7 and this solution worked for me! Thanks.
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Thursday, April 12, 2012 7:07 PM
Thanks. Its easly solved my problem. DDE option was already unckecked in my Excel but compatibility was set to XP which I changed to Win7 and it works. Thank you.
CA. Bhola Kumar
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Wednesday, April 18, 2012 9:52 PMThis worked for me with Excel 2007.
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Sunday, April 22, 2012 12:23 AM
Problem unresolved:
I am using MS Office 2010 Professional Plus (service pack 1) 64 bit with Windows 7 Home premium 64 bit (service pack 1).
When ever I double click any .xls file: "There was a problem...." error message is displayed. But if i first open excel and then open the file, in that case no problem.
I have unchecked 'Ignore other applications that use DDE'. As a precaution, I checked the DDE option, closed excel, opened excel a 2nd time to uncheck the DDE option.
I have disabled and removed all COM add-ins
I have unchecked all compatibility options.I have also changed the default printer to XPS writer.
But still I get the error. I have also reinstalled office 2010 and applied all updates. -
Wednesday, April 25, 2012 9:55 AM
Thanks alot. I checked all the previous solutions and none of these worked for me.
Follow the below steps to solve the issue:
Step(1): find the Excel.EXE (mostly: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office12\)
Step(2): Goto the Excel Properties and then Identify Compatibility Tab
Step(3): Select Windows7 value available under compatibility dropdown.
Step(4): Finally Click OK button and Exit.
Thanks,
- Edited by Suresh Kambham Wednesday, April 25, 2012 9:58 AM just alignment
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Saturday, May 05, 2012 5:40 AMI too would love to know how to disable DDE within Project 2010!?
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Wednesday, May 09, 2012 10:26 PM
This is not a fix. This is disabling enhanced functionality that was part of the product to make the rest of the product work correctly. I need to open separate instances of excel in their own windows and i'm tired of having to open new spreadsheets every time I want to open a file in a different window. Excel 2010 does that through the "ignore other applications/DDE" setting.
This is a bug, period and needs to be addressed. Nothing I've found addresses this and neither does modifying or adding registry keys.
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Wednesday, May 09, 2012 10:29 PM
This solution fixes the problem, but it creates another problem.
With this option checked every Excel file I open, creates a new Excel instance, so I can have different Excel files open on different monitors.
With this option unchecked all of my open Excel files are in one instance, so I can't place them in different monitors.
Can I have the problem fixed and enable the ability to place open Excel files in different monitors?
Exactly. This is not a fix. This is a half effort and really only somewhat of a solution for previous versions of Excel. -
Wednesday, May 09, 2012 10:42 PM
MS release a tool to fix that problem. It works well to me.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/211494
All this tool does is turn the DDE setting off for you. If you don't want to use that feature or is you have a previous version that's fine, but otherwise this is not a fix. -
Friday, May 11, 2012 1:30 PMStrange I am having the exact same problem as you are starting on the same day. Bug or function?
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