I’m not able to configure Excel to behave as desired. I hope that someone who has Excel (for Windows) can duplicate my issue. Please take the following steps:
Create a shortcut to an Excel spreadsheet on your desktop.
Right-click on the shortcut and select Properties.
Change the Run option from Normal Window to Minimized.
Select Apply and then OK.
Double-click on the shortcut.
Does the spreadsheet then start minimized? On my system, the file starts in a normal window. I’ve tried to get a spreadsheet to start minimized, but with no success. At this point, I’m not requesting troubleshooting advice. I just want to know if others get the same result. Thanks.
I get the same result on my PC with Win11 with Excel 16.
I did some more research. If I set the shortcut to the xlsx to open maximized Excel does open that way. But the minimized setting of the shortcut is ignored, instead opening the Excel window however it was left last time Excel was closed: normal or maximized.
I created a desktop shortcut directly to Excel.exe itself. That shortcut will open Excel minimized, normal, or maximized, correctly following whatever setting in the shortcut says to do.
I experimented with a few other backstage tricks to separate starting Excel from opening the spreadsheet file. In each case when Excel is triggered to actually open a file, it expands itself from minimized to a normal window.
I conclude that the behavior we’re seeing with the OP’s shortcut when it’s configured to “minimize” is that Excel really is being started minimized. But then Excel begins processing the “open file [whatever]” part of its command line and by design Excel expands the window to normal. Presumably so you can see what you just opened.
Which is not really a very polite design from a PC guru’s POV but is probably an example of “just do what the user is probably wanting” design which is a common form of handholding for the non-techies.
The entire Office suite has always been one of the worst violators of standard Windows UI design principles, so it’s no shock that they’d get this wrong, also. From their handling of multiple documents to non-standard keyboard shortcuts, it’s always been a mess. So add one to the pile.
Thanks for all the useful and helpful replies. So it seems that this behavior is built in to Excel. I find that odd, because both Word and Access will honor the “Run Minimized” option when creating a shortcut to a document. I created a workaround by using Autohotkey ( AutoHotkey) to open my spreadsheet and then minimize it.
Nice! For what it’s worth, the code in my original thread doesn’t work in 64-bit Excel 365. I found a workaround, which I’m sure you’re all happy to hear.
In my work troubleshooting and solving tech issues, I’ve often employed what we call a “work-around” when a full solution wasn’t readily available. The obvious “work-around” here is opening the spreadsheet and clicking the minimize button at the top. It takes but a moment. Is there a compelling reason why you are so intent to have it open as minimized? I’m sorry if I appear nosey, LOL, but that is exactly the question I would ask if someone here at work came to me with the same issue.
At any rate, after you open your excel sheet and it shows full size, hold down the windows key and hit the down arrow once. That will show it in reduced size on the screen. If you hold down the windows key and hit the down arrow twice, it drops to the taskbar.
Microshit is guilty of this A LOT! I am constantly swearing at Excel - “Do what I want, not what you think I want!”
OK, old guy tech story. A long, long, long time ago, (as in Windows 3.1), the company I was at decided that we should have a suite of products rather than individual products. AT THE TIME, Lotus was still THE spreadsheet to have. I was in the user group helping evaluate the products. I think Excel had a slicker product than Lotus, although Lotus was better at printing. One thing I discovered - if you opened Excel; worked; closed Excel; opened Excel; worked; closed Excel; opened Excel; etc., sooner or later, you would run out of memory. Excel would not release all of the memory it grabbed when opening. Eventually, you would have to re-boot to get the memory back.
So, that means Lotus was the better product. IIRC, Ami Pro was a much much better word processor than Word. Of course, we ended up with the Microshit suite.
I would politely suggest Apple has Microsoft beat hands down when it comes to “There is one way to work, and that’s the way Cupertino/Redmond wants you to work.” And always has.
@Jasmine I worked for many years in IT. I probably would have had the same reaction as you if a user brought this situation to my attention. Now retired, I have plenty of time to waste spend on such matters.
Are you sure this is just an Excel problem ?
I just tried setting a couple of other shortcuts (Thunderbird & CCleaner) on my
desktop to open minimised… and neither did.
I wouldn’t know about Thunderbird, but the issue with CCleaner is slightly different. Its exe file won’t start minimized. Excel’s exe will start minimized, but a spreadsheet opened with Excel won’t. Notepad exhibits the same behavior as Excel, though.
I can start Notepad minimized no problem. I suspect it relates to Excel’s “instancing” design. I’ve tried a few things with batch files and I can’t solve OP’s problem. If it’s really an issue that indeed needs solving, I suspect VBA or a third party software is still the best way.
As for Microsoft, they haven’t always been the best or most friendly software company, but Excel is one of the best things they’ve done. Google Sheets, LibreOffice Calc, none are as nice, whereas the Word and other software equivalents are pretty good.
That’s correct. When I stated that Notepad behaves the same as Excel, I meant this: You can cause Notepad.exe to run minimized by using a shortcut. However, you can’t open a text file via Notepad in a shortcut and have it run minimized.