phantom .xla won't go away

[miconian]

I made the mistake of downloading the 'file size reducer' xla from ozgrid. It can be found here:

http://www.ozgrid.com/Excel/ExcelProblems.htm

Anyway, I have Excel 2007, and the add-in is apparently made for Excel 2003, and it didn't work for me. I forgot about it for a while, but today I noticed it showing up as a project in my VBA editor.

I can't delete it from the VBA editor. It doesn't show up in the Add-ins Manager.

I searched for it on my hard drive, found it in the add-ins folder, and deleted it.

But now when I start Excel, I get an error... Excel is still looking for it.

"C:\Documents and Settings\myname\Application Data\Microsoft\AddIns\File Size Reducer.xla' could not be found. Check the spelling of the file name..." etc.

I'm realizing that the download page is ancient, and the person who coded the add-in probably died a thousand years ago. How can I get rid of this darn thing... or, put differently, how can I get my Excel to stop expecting it?

 

[hiker95]

miconian,

Your posted link has a reference (check to see if there are instrucitons to delete the addin):

Instructions for its use are in the text file within the zip file.


Or, contact one of the administrators at Ozgrid for help.

 

[miconian]

hiker95, you are mistaken. The text file within the zip file says nothing about how to remove the add-in.

 

[jimrward]

try looking in the xlstartup folder, or do a search of your C drive for *.xla, as startup folder varies with operating system and version of office

once you find it, move or delete the XLA file

 

[miconian]

As discussed above, I already searched my hard drive, found the file, and deleted it. That is not the problem.

 

[jimrward]

also look in the trusted locations for excel, click the big button and find the trusted location area and remove the reference, microsoft varies between 2007/2010

 

[jimrward]

also, try start, run and type in %appdata% and choose microsoft, excel, xlstart, and see if xla is in there, as I said MS is awkward as to where it hides things

 

[miconian]

I didn't find an .xla file, or anything that looked like a reference to the add-in, in any of those locations.

 

[xenou]

I have fuzzy recollections of seeing this problem before. Maybe try this:

Create a dummy xla of your own and put it in this location:
C:\Documents and Settings\myname\Application Data\Microsoft\AddIns\File Size Reducer.xla

Hope that it shows up in the addins - if so, then uninstall it. Or if not, install it and then uninstall it, and see if it "takes" this time.

 

[miconian]

Hey, that worked. Thanks, xenou!