Your preference may be to have Excel start up without displaying an empty workbook. This can easily be done by creating a new shortcut and modifying its target field. There is an added bonus to this, you will also bypass the splash screen as well.
1. Using Windows Explorer, navigate to the directory that you installed Office. The default is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office.
2. In the Office12 directory, find excel.exe.
3. Right-click and drag excel.exe to your desktop.
4. Release the mouse button and then select Create Shortcut Here from the resulting menu.
5. Right-click on the newly created shortcut and select Properties.
6. Go to the Target textbox. Go to the end of the path (after the quotes) and add one space and type in /e.
7. Click OK.
Using this shortcut will open Excel without the splash screen and with no workbook.
