I have a strange problem that seems to be occurring randomly but regulary on my computer. It also seems to effect some of my collegues but not to the point it does for me.

The problem is that with my Office 2013 installation I will every once in a while get invisible windows for Office 2013 applications. This means that one or more of my open Office 2013 windows turns invisible and can not be accessed unless first minimized by right clicking the taskbar icon and then restored/maximized again. Then the window will turn normal again. A side effect of this is also that sometimes the invisible window is the top window making it impossible to click on whatever window seems to be on top (but actually is under the invisible window).

This applies to all applications in the Office 2013 installation, I have seen the bug for Word, Excel, Outlook (main window, open email conversations, etc), Powerpoint and Access.

The behaviour is similar to what is described in the following (but closed) thread for the preview version but I am using the latest version with the latest updates from Microsoft Update. The difference is that I do not see any connection to closed windows as described in this thread.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/officeitpropreview/thread/fac48ad4-516c-457c-ba89-56f47f465841/

I am using Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013 (Swedish) but I also have Excel 2003/2007/2010 installed. I have never seen this for any of the earlier versions so this is something new for Office 2013.

Anyone have any solution to this?

• Edited by jooh Monday, June 17, 2013 7:15 AM

The original thread was mine, back in the 2013 preview days. It continued all the way through the betas and preview release versions, and now has obviously carried over to the official release version. Then, as now, Jaynet Zhang gave non-working "answers" similar to the one she gave in this thread, LOL.

As someone who has many Excel workbooks open at once, the bug cropped up constantly. I tried the 64-bit version, 32-bit version, did extensive uninstalls of all Office versions on my computer (even manual), tried the 360 version, the download version ... and the bug was always there.

After extensive testing, the only conclusion I could come to was A) It was a glitch in Office 2013 or B) It was caused by having a previous version of Office installed. If anyone has the bug on a computer where they never had a previous version of Office installed on, then it's a bug in the program itself and Microsoft should acknowledge and fix it.

The invisible window bug is the main reason I don't use Office 2013, and never will until the bug is fixed.

• Edited by Obsidian-2 Monday, November 04, 2013 1:13 AM

I'm just now experiencing a rather similar Problem: after installing Office2013 (win8.1 x64), it worked well for quite a while (2 weeks or so). Just now, I've changed the Windows language settings from German to English. After restarting the machine, I could start Outlook, and could see the Icon on the taskbar. When right clicking on the icon, I can even write emails, make new appointments, etc. But the Outlook main-window isn't visible.  All other Office applications seems to work normal. I've got the Impression, the window is there but can't be visualized on the Screen.

Any solution on this? Many thanks!

Addendum: just realized, when I run Outlook in safe mode (Outlook.exe / safe) then it works fine.

• Edited by Chris Renfer Thursday, December 19, 2013 12:03 PM

This is not the answer. We have 7000 users and this is a problem for us. Please address with a real answer.

Thanks,

Nathan

• Proposed as answer by NathanGHart Wednesday, February 12, 2014 6:06 PM

I had the same problem but it seems disappeared after I have Disabled the Hardware Graphics Acceleration. from the advanced excel 2013 settings.

• Proposed as answer by AndyTOxon Friday, March 07, 2014 10:37 AM

Dear Obsidian-2,

I had not a previously installed version of the Office when I installed Office 2013: so yes, it was really from scratch and Im still getting this awful bug with Excel.

This is really getting seriously and considering the fact that Service Pack 1 do not adressed this problem, it seems to me that we are going to endure this bug for more months.

Im considering right now to change Office 2013 for Office 2010: less buggy, much more reliable.

• Edited by Leo235 Wednesday, April 23, 2014 8:25 AM

I am having the same issue as all of the above. Invisible windows. Occurs at random times. Even when a single document is opened. Happened on my fresh, reset, fully updated Lenovo running Win 7. Bug present in both excel and word.

Microsoft, get on this!

• Edited by PersonRunningWindows Wednesday, July 09, 2014 4:32 PM

Multiple users including myself in my organization see the same thing with Office 2013 SP1.  The issue seems to only occur if the application is already open (ie. excel spread already open, and attempting to open a second spread from Outlook, or by clicking a lnk)

You can also just right click on the invisible window and "restore" and the document will come up as well..

Microsoft needs to release a fix for this...

• Edited by JoeFri Tuesday, October 21, 2014 7:23 PM
• Proposed as answer by JoeFri Tuesday, October 21, 2014 7:23 PM

Hello, after some months of use I can confirm that if you enable "Disabled Hardware Graphics Acceleration" the problem of the invisible window is "solved" (at least for me...) :)

I think that it only occur on Windows 7, I tried Excel 2013 on a Windows 8 notebook (only for a few minutes...) but the problem doesn't happen (with Hardware Graphics Acceleration enabled)

• Edited by xain72 Friday, January 23, 2015 11:23 AM added -at least for me-
• Proposed as answer by rewn Tuesday, January 27, 2015 8:25 AM

I've seen many threads about this on the internet. All sorts of different PC configurations. Mostly happening with Windows 7 OS installed. Here I've got about 25 users with custom built PC's all windows 7, all office 2013 standalone. Only some users have experienced this issue and it only occurs very rarely.

Taking all the different situations into account this is something that is an issue with office 2013 interacting with windows. Microsoft should be looking into this issue as it is quite a big one. I'm pretty sure they will have come across it in testing, if they tested correctly that is.

MS have acknowledged there is "blurriness or distortion" with newer NVIDIA or ATI graphics adapters, on their known issues list, but everyone in my organisation are using on-board Intel based graphics so this must refer to some other issue.

Sort it out MS, office 2013 just feels like a re-skinned 2010 anyway so take the "pretty" skin off and give us functionality back.

https://support.office.microsoft.com/en-us/article/Microsoft-Office-e9fe113d-fe57-42d9-aaf3-0e112ea4655a

Invisible Excel is certainly an issue for me.

In my case, this is caused when I have no open excel files, but Excel is still open. The Excel window is active but invisible on my second screen (so you can see whatever app is behind it), but you cannot click on the app you can see. I have to minimise then maximise excel to make it visible again, or click on the Task bar ico for the app you can see to bring that to the foreground.

So excel is not handling no open file well at all. Causes regular unnecessay fustration.

I am also getting this across a range of our laptops at the company I work for, it seems to effect Office 2013 and not 2010. I am going to have to suggest a downgrade to one of my staff who is getting frustrated by it. Microsoft please fix this.

Same Here!

Had Office 2007 Enterprise for many years and found a great promotion for 365 so I decided to 'upgrade'.

At first I noticed I forgo to uninstall 2007 and had the 2013 coexisting but my office files opened with the new version, I unistalled 2007 entirely and the problem is still here, some times just selecting the open file again repaints the page, sometimes I have to close via the small window preview yo get in Win7.

Was this caused for not removing 2007 first? (the coexisting installations)

I'm running Win7 64bit with a more or less 'clean' state.. and have the new office up to date with the March 2015 update. I'm seriously considering to the 100% stable (at least for me) 2007 Enterprise.

Should I try the repair Offce option?

I appreciate any suggestions as this is a real issue for the time it consumes.

I am facing the same issue, thought it was random once in while, but its happening to regularly to be ignored, hope this is fixed by MS soon.

Hi All,

I'm a Helpdesk agent at my company, and got this issue several times. After a lot of troubleshooting found out this problem might have something to do with Excel's window position when opening it, I noticed window always opens "Maximized" not showing cells (but we can see the background), if we restore the window Excel shows the cells again (we can even maximize window again and continue working) and can open other files with no problems as long as Excel remains open, but if we close it, Windows does not save application's screen position nor window state, for example, if last time we closed Excel it was in "restored" state, windows should remember that position for the next time it's opened, but it doesn't, so next time you open Excel it will always start maximized and not showing the sheet, that took me to restore user's windows profile, which made Windows remember excel's window position again, showing workbooks' content, but after few days the issue reappeared.

Hope this helps as a workaround, as well as to identify a possible windows profile issue

-Ed

This is not the answer

I did have this same issue... Then I remembered that once, with ine specific video driver on an HP Computer the answer was to "disable graphic acceleration hardware" option on the office 2013. Tried it and, so far, the problem has been gone. This optio is located (using word 2013) under "File-Options-advanced-Display" just check that option and restart the office application.

Best Regards,

Dave.

Jaynet Zhang, how on earth can you call this an answer?  This is no answer at all.  I have this issue (as another user put it) "randomly but regularly."   It only seems to happen when I have many applications open at once, and the physical memory has been mostly consumed.  I always hit the space bar and restore.  I had assumed it was some memory-saving technique that MS Office had devised, essentially hibernating inactive windows.  To reproduce it, try opening a bunch of large Word documents and Excel documents, consuming at least 70% of physical memory.  I have only seen it happen when Outlook is also open, but then, I nearly always have Outlook open.