Excel: Opening Two Files With One Blank

[bball23]

Just purchased the following computer (http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y700-series/y700-15-inch/) and have been experiencing quite a few errors already. In addition to many programs' icons being small and almost unreadable (seems to be due to the Ultra HD resolution), I've noticed that every time I open an Excel file, it not only opens that file, but it also opens a blank workbook as well. This has never happened to me on any previous computer or previous version of Excel and googling the issue has been futile thus far.

To be clear, I'm totally fine with Excel opening a blank workbook if I just click on the Excel shortcut on my taskbar, but I do NOT want Excel to open up a blank workbook when let's say I'm opening up a spreadsheet for a financial model. It's annoying as hell. Ha.

Once again, any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[bball23]

By the way, I've heard some people mention that the preview pane is an issue (https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/205890-excel-opens-two-instances-of-file-one-blank?page=3), but mine isn't even on. Also my C:\Users\mflat\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART is blank with nothing in it (that was another suggestion to delete a file within tha tfolder).

 

[bball23]

Oddly enough, this does not happen with other office products such as Word or PPT.

 

[Trouble]

It seems that it might be related to a problem with a particular registry key with respect to Excel, and dependent on which version of Excel you are using.
You might have a look at this article here
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/328233

Using the Windows Registry Editor can cause serious, system-wide problems that may require you to re-install Windows to correct them. It cannot be guaranteed that any problems resulting from the use of the Windows Registry Editor can be solved. If you choose to edit the Windows Registry please understand that you do so at your own risk so unless you feel fairly comfortable and confident you should probably not use the Editor. Changes made to the Windows Registry can take effect immediately and those that do not will take effect following the next reboot of your computer, and a current backup is not automatically made for you....So manually create a system restore point, backup the registry and export the key you are editing for safe keeping before doing so.

 

[bball23]

Interesting. How can a 5 day old computer have a registry error, though? I mean that must be the fastest computer screw up in history. I've done nothing other than transfer files and install basic applications. That just seems crazy there would already be a registry error. I've resisted going Mac for so long....but geez Microsoft. I don't really feel comfortable editing the registry at all, but I guess doing the backup first is what I'll have to do. I even reinstalled Windows about 3 days ago when I first noticed this problem and that didn't fix it.

 

[bball23]

With method #2, the last thing I see is:

Excel 2003
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel

How do I know which one of the 11.0, 12.0 (mine goes all the way to 16.0) is for Excel 2016? My guess is that it's 16.0

 

[bball23]

Also, the last part of method 2 says "In the right pane, double-click AltStartup, delete the contents of the Value data box, and then click OK."

However, as you can see by the screenshot attached below, I have no "AltStartup" in the right pane. Any idea why?