[ms office - 2013] Excel 2013 - "There was a problem sending the command to the program"

[Norphy]

I've just installed Office 2013 on a couple of new terminal servers. There is an issue that effects a few users. When these users try to open an Excel file directly through Explorer, it comes up with an error that says "There was a problem sending the command to the program". If Excel is open at the time, the file will open.

 

Naturally I've googled this and followed the various suggestions. The most common one is to disable "Ignore other applications that use DDE" but that's already disabled. I've also tried the various registry hacks suggested but none of those work either.

 

This is only affecting a few users, me among them, which is all the more infuriating. It seems to follow me from one machine to another as well so I assumed that it was a roaming issue but deleting the UE-V settings package for Office 2013 and deleting local user profiles from the machines made no difference.

 

I'm getting annoyed with this one, can anyone help?

 

Cheers

Edited March 24, 2014 by Norphy

[LosOjos]

Not come across the issue myself but the first thing that comes to mind is to check the file association hasn't had any unusual arguments added, just compare the arguments on a "broken" machine with a working one and see if there's any difference. It's a long shot but maybe worth a look!

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Not come across the issue myself but the first thing that comes to mind is to check the file association hasn't had any unusual arguments added, just compare the arguments on a "broken" machine with a working one and see if there's any difference. It's a long shot but maybe worth a look!

[Norphy]

Thanks.

 

I've checked the user hive area where file associations are set on my user and with a user which isn't affected, they're identical

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Thanks.

 

I've checked the user hive area where file associations are set on my user and with a user which isn't affected, they're identical

[Norphy]

This appears to be a problem with UE-V v2. The new version has put in a user-controlled control panel which lets you select which applications you want to sync. Disabling syncing Excel has "fixed" the problem.

 

/edit it is indeed a UE-V bug:

 

Hotfix Package 1 for Microsoft User Experience Virtualization 2.0

Edited March 24, 2014 by Norphy

[dd_]

hello Norphy

I’m experiencing the same issue except in Word 2007. I’ve implementedthe same suggestions however the error persists.

Environment:

Terminal servers Citrix server - Xenapps 6.0 on Win 200764bit

Office 2007 SP3

Issue:

From the desktop users double click on a word document. The result is a message displays "There wasa problem sending the command to the program".

Word opens, however the document doesn’t.

Occurs first time on Word start-up within that session. If Word is already open the message doesn’t display.

All other applications ie Excel, PowerPoint behave correctly.

Did the Microsoft hotfix resolve your excel issue on

Cheers,

Edited April 11, 2014 by dd_
typo

[SYNACK]

You need to fix file associations for those users, easiest way is to recreate the profile or run a repair install of office for each user.

[dd_]

Thanks Synack

 

Yes the workaround is to delete users profile on the new terminal servers. This works and resolves the issue. However this is a temporary workaround, and getting tiring for the 1200 users that logon to citrix.

 

There’s something under the HKCU users profile causing the error.

 

I’ve googled and done the recommended suggestions without success. ie

 

Delete specific User keys

 

• Delete registry keys
  

Delete Words data key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Data

 

Delete Word Options key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Word\Options

 

 

Perform an Office repair under user.

 

Perform an Office diagnostic under use

 

Uncheck Compatibility Mode and Privilege Level. "Run as administrator". The checkbox isn't ticked in winword.exe's properties

 

Change Shell Open command and remove the DDE switch from line

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office12\WINWORD.EXE" /n /dde

The result: works however each time you double click a word doc launches a second (additional) Word sessions

Also other software reliant on the DDE no longer works and has integration.

 

Change printer drivers