Excel requested even if already installed

One of my user has this problem: he tries to launch the .exe workbook and the following message appears: “Excel is required in order to run this application. Cannot continue.”
He has a new computer with Windows 10 pro 64bit and Excel 2016 32bit installed.
What’s the problem?
I have created the workbook with XLS padlock 2.4

By default, secure applications made with XLS Padlock detect Excel thanks to the Windows registry:
Open RegEdit, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\excel.exe

Ask you user to double-check that the path to the Excel’s EXE file is correct. If it isn’t correct, he’ll have to fix it or repair Office so that the path is correctly set up by the Office’s installer.

My user solved the problem thanks to a Office repairing.

Now I have another user with the same problem. Of course I suggested him the same solution. He tried but the repairing didn’t work.
Is there another way to set correctly the link? Is there a manual procedure for example? Or a new re-installation of the Office is needed?
Thanks

Hi Support,

I also would like to highlight that this problem is occurring more often recently, I had 4 users over the past month with this problem.

Cheers,

Alex1 said:

Is there another way to set correctly the link? Is there a manual procedure for example? Or a new re-installation of the Office is needed?

Click to expand...

The sole workaround is either repairing Office or fixing the path in the registry key: open RegEdit, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\excel.exe
and change the registered path to the correct Excel.exe path.

We’ll look into another additional method to get the path to Excel.exe in a future XLS Padlock release.

Hi Support,

This is a recurring issue, many users report this problem to me.
I can also imagine that I have lost many customer due to this issue.

Can you please advise when this will be fixed?
I understand reinstalling Office is the solution for the moment, but we need to fix this issue and stop losing customers.

Thanks,

We found another way to detect Excel, so we will use it if the standard way doesn’t work. This will be integrated into the incoming XLS Padlock 2019. The release is taking more time, especially because we’re rewriting the entire formula protection system.

I ran into the same problem with XLSPadlock 2021.1 on a Windows/11 with Excel365 and , “Excel is required in order to run this application. Cannot continue.”

The .exe file ran successfully from a memory stick as well as a network drive. The .exe failed when it was run from both a root folder and a “Document” folder on the “C” drive.

Further research determined the following:

We had the following in the Registry:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\excel.exe]
@=“C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.Office.Desktop.Excel_16051.15225.20288.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe\Office16\EXCEL.exe”
“Path”=“C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.Office.Desktop.Excel_16051.15225.20288.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe\Office16”

We exported that information to a file with the suffix .reg, edited with Notepad and saved it as a fix.reg file (NO .txt suffix). It looked like this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\excel.exe]
@=“C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.Office.Desktop.Excel_16051.15225.20288.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe\Office16\EXCEL.exe”
“Path”=“C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\Microsoft.Office.Desktop.Excel_16051.15225.20288.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe\Office16”

Double-clicked, approved adding the entry, and this problem appears to have gone away (no reboot needed!).