- Jan 23, 2021
- 256
I have a 2 year old laptop running Windows 10 21H2. I keep it updated with all the MS updates as I receive them. I use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of my financial stuff, bills that I paid, house expenses, things like that. I went to pay a bill yesterday and got an error saying Windows could not open or locate my spreadsheet. I keep the Excel sheet on a thumb drive, it is not stored on my computer or Onedrive. I got the same error for all of the Office 365 apps.
I tried to fix the problem, re-installed Office twice, no joy. I had to reset the laptop with a clean installation of Windows to get Excel and the rest of Office working again. I don't know how or why the Office problem happened. I did read that there was a problem with Avast maybe a year ago where Avast broke some MS office apps. I had experimented earlier this year with Avast and Bitdefender but a few weeks ago went back to WD with Edge as my default browser.
It could also have been a Windows update that broke Office. I was on vacation last week and left my laptop at home. One of the first things I did when I got home was run the updates MS had sent me and I thought everything was fine. It was after the updates when I found that Excel would not work. That makes me wonder if the MS update was the culprit here.
My question is I wonder if third party apps like LibreOffice or WPS or OpenOffice are less susceptible to MS errors causing problems like this or erasing stored data? This is not the first time something like this has happened. Last year I lost 35 gb of mp3's after a MS update. Everything was fine before that one too. I will change from MS Office if LibreOffice or something like it is more resilient or less likely to be affected by MS updates or possible AV problems. I don't use Word or Excel a lot but I would like it to work when I do need it.
Thanks for any help on this.
C.H.
I tried to fix the problem, re-installed Office twice, no joy. I had to reset the laptop with a clean installation of Windows to get Excel and the rest of Office working again. I don't know how or why the Office problem happened. I did read that there was a problem with Avast maybe a year ago where Avast broke some MS office apps. I had experimented earlier this year with Avast and Bitdefender but a few weeks ago went back to WD with Edge as my default browser.
It could also have been a Windows update that broke Office. I was on vacation last week and left my laptop at home. One of the first things I did when I got home was run the updates MS had sent me and I thought everything was fine. It was after the updates when I found that Excel would not work. That makes me wonder if the MS update was the culprit here.
My question is I wonder if third party apps like LibreOffice or WPS or OpenOffice are less susceptible to MS errors causing problems like this or erasing stored data? This is not the first time something like this has happened. Last year I lost 35 gb of mp3's after a MS update. Everything was fine before that one too. I will change from MS Office if LibreOffice or something like it is more resilient or less likely to be affected by MS updates or possible AV problems. I don't use Word or Excel a lot but I would like it to work when I do need it.
Thanks for any help on this.
C.H.