You cannot use double-click to open an Excel attachment in Outlook 2000

All attempts to open an Excel e-mail file attachment by double-clicking the file are unsuccessful.

If you double-click an Excel attachment from within an e-mail message, Excel starts and appears to stop responding without opening the worksheet. If you minimize Excel, you see the following hidden error message: If you right-click the Excel e-mail attachment and then click Save As, to save it to your hard disk drive, it saves sucessfully. However, when you double-click the saved file to open it, you receive the following error message: If you attempt to open the file from your hard disk drive by clicking Open on the Excel File menu, the file opens.

To resolve this problem, follow these steps:

1. Close the e-mail message.
2. Start Excel.
3. On the Tools menu, click Options.
4. Under the General tab, click to clear, Ignore other applications, and then click OK.
5. Quit Excel.

Now you can double-click the attachment to open it in Excel, you can save it to the hard disk drive, and then double-click the file to open it.

For additional information about this issue, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: