# Excel file icons ugly orange **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 17, 2013, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-file-icons-ugly-orange/669046 "2013-09-17T14:03:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac8455/32.png) [@robz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robz)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-file-icons-ugly-orange/669046/1 "2013-09-17T14:03:53Z")
Last Thursday afternoon my win 7 pc had a very long update, on Friday all my excel icons had changed to a weird orange color. Poking around I found that office 12 was downloaded on my drive. I currently use excel 2002 because it does every thing I need it do. Is there any way to get my old green file icons back? Anyway to get critical updates but keep microsoft from down loading large files that I do not use? Sorry to be such a dinosaur. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Uber\_the\_Goober](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/58956e/32.png) [@Uber\_the\_Goober](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uber_the_Goober)\ **Post date:** [September 17, 2013, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-file-icons-ugly-orange/669046/2 "2013-09-17T15:48:17Z")
> [@robz](#): > > Last Thursday afternoon my win 7 pc had a very long update, on Friday all my excel icons had changed to a weird orange color. Poking around I found that office 12 was downloaded on my drive. I currently use excel 2002 because it does every thing I need it do. Is there any way to get my old green file icons back? Anyway to get critical updates but keep microsoft from down loading large files that I do not use? Sorry to be such a dinosaur. Thanks. Same thing happened to me - and it also told me that I could no longer access the files (Word files) because I had to re-authenticate my copy of MS Word. Problem is, this was pre-loaded software, and I don’t have the authentication key anymore… Sorry I don’t have an answer for you, just another question! ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-file-icons-ugly-orange/669046/3 "2013-09-18T00:19:20Z")
Go to Control Panel, Programs and Features, and uninstall Office 12. Just don’t uninstall the version of Office that you actually use. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-file-icons-ugly-orange/669046/4 "2013-09-18T00:40:39Z")
Office 12 (aka Office 2007) does not use orange for it’s Excel icons. As far as I can tell all recent versions use a green color scheme, orange for Powerpoint. Can you post an example? I doubt Microsoft gave a free update. Are you sure they aren’t the compatibility files for .xlsx, .docx, etc.? This is a good thing. If you go to Control Panel \> Default Programs \> Set Associations and scroll to Excel, are all the icons for it orange? It makes me think something in yours got corrupted. ---
**Author:** ![Number](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/number/32/242_2.png) [@Number](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Number)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-file-icons-ugly-orange/669046/5 "2013-09-18T02:21:02Z")
The orange icons are for Office Starter, a stripped-down ad-supported version which was pre-installed on a lot of computers (though Microsoft is now phasing it out). If you have another version of Office installed, like **robz** , then you can either uninstall Office Starter or change the file associations back to the correct version. If, like **Uber\_the\_Goober** , you only use Office Starter, then go to Programs and Features and uninstall any other versions of Office which show up in the list. ---
**Author:** ![robz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac8455/32.png) [@robz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robz)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2013, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-file-icons-ugly-orange/669046/6 "2013-09-18T15:02:27Z")
I uninstalled Office 10. Office 12 did not show up in control panel, but when I go to start, computer, c:, program files (x86), microsoft office, there is a folder for office 12 that was created 9/12/13. Anyway, uninstalling office 10 worked, I rebooted and all my excel files returned to normal. There is still a folder for office 10 and office 12 on the drive, both with all kinds of files. Weird. Thank you all for the help.