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

Hi,

Based on my test with Office 2013, I have not meet the issue so far.

So, try to repair Office to check the issue.

If repair does not solve the issue, please start Windows in clean boot to check whether the issue is caused by some third party services.

I've been having the exact same problem for quite a while.  I hate it when it happens when I open an e-mail attachment (typically Word or Excel), because then I have to close the attachment and try to open it again -- sometimes several times before it finally will display.  I've seen other complaints about this problem on the Internet, but no resolutions.

This has also been happening to me with Office 2013 for a while.

It makes the computer appear frozen sometimes because you try to click on something and it's unresponsive, but eventually I figure out there is an invisible window (either Word, Excel, Outlook) actually running that is intercepting my clicks but not showing me anything.

It happens quite a lot actually. I'm surprised more people haven't reported the issue because if I weren't a computer savvy person I would easily mistake it for a crashing computer when my screen stops responding to clicks.

Hi,

I have also been experiencing this issue quite a lot over the past few days.

It seems to happen most when opening a file attachment from an outlook email.  No idea why and its a bit of a pain!

I'm experiencing this exact issue on all 20 workstations in one of our labs at the moment. Reinstalling Office 2013 from scratch has had no effect.

It happens for all users when sitting at the workstations (including the local admin account), but not if I log in via RDP. I'm suspecting a graphics driver issue. Will see if I can find an update and report back.

I've been experiencing this on Office 365 for quite some time now.  As far as I recall, this occurs only with MS Office e-mail attachments as accessed from the Outlook client.  I also note that when I launch Outlook, sometimes the new reminders window is invisible.  If I return from hibernate and a reminder has gone off, the new reminders window AND the Outlook windows itself will be invisible.  I've found that if I close the new reminders window from the task bar, the Outlook window can then be made visible again by minimizing it and restoring it again.  I believe, but am not positive, that the invisible windows still respond to mouse clicks as though they were visible.  

One of my co-workers also has this problem, but none of my other co-workers (5 I asked) have seen it.  We're all running Dell laptops.  I can't recall if I've seen this problem with the laptop screen (vs. an external monitor) -- I'll test it out.

Finally got around to a test:  when the reminders window was invisible on my external monitor, I opened the laptop to see what happened.  When the laptop screen woke up (and the external monitor changed resolution to match the laptop screen), the reminder window magically appeared.  When I closed the laptop (and the external monitor returned to its original resolution), the reminder window remained visible.  So, it seems like it might indeed be a graphics driver issue.  The question is, do I want to spend the time searching for an updated driver and see if that fixes the problem -- or do I just keep opening my laptop when the problem occurs.  Since it took me almost a month since my last entry on this site, I suspect I'll go the new driver route -- in another month...  

We have been having this exact same problem on a new office rollout, 15 brand new Dell OptiPlex running Windows 7 and Office 2013.

Seems to be happening *mostly* when opening Excel attachments from emails.

Struggling to find other threads on this one, will take a look at graphics drivers.

Great - I'm not alone with this problem.

Same here - opening attachement from Outlook mails (usually Excel, Word) I almost every time have the invisible Window. Minimizing and opening the window again (guessing where the button is, or using the taskbar context-menu) causes a refresh and everything is visible again.

I'm using a Lenovo Notebook with ATI GPU... problem occurs weather I have an additional monitor attached or just working standalone with the notebook-display.

Really annoying bug.

Im seeing the same issue as everyone else.  Lenovo laptop as well.  I just installed the latest office service pack and im still seeing the issues.  Would love to find a solution. 

Yep me too.

I'm likely to use an alternative product once my subscription ends unless MS can get this fixed. Tried changing graphics drivers, disabling various add-ons, updating the software and nothing works...

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've experienced this problem since day 1 of installing office 2013. i don't open attachments as often as some folks might, so that's not where i see the problem. usually one of the office 2013 window will just randomly be invisible when i switch to it. i'm used to it by now and i know to either alt+space+r or x (resize window, maximize window) and the window will properly repaint/refresh itself. if i know the form is maximized i can also grab the invisible window handle at the top of the screen, drag it around, and it repaints itself.

I would think it's an issue with some new window container system office uses, because i see it on outlook, onenote, excel, practically all of them that i use. i use no third-party plug-ins except lync and live meeting, and since they're microsoft products i don't even consider those as third-party. what comes to mind is the cute new 'customize the look of the office windows' system. i picked the geometric pattern (lol is that bad?). 

this is on a dell precision company laptop, windows 7 x64, nvidia graphics card, and office 2013 x32. it may be relevant that dameware is installed and running at all times. i wonder if anyone else with this problem also runs dameware?

• Proposed as answer by PlayaMark 5 hours 50 minutes ago

I've experienced this problem since day 1 of installing office 2013. i don't open attachments as often as some folks might, so that's not where i see the problem. usually one of the office 2013 window will just randomly be invisible when i switch to it. i'm used to it by now and i know to either alt+space+r or x (resize window, maximize window) and the window will properly repaint/refresh itself. if i know the form is maximized i can also grab the invisible window handle at the top of the screen, drag it around, and it repaints itself.

I would think it's an issue with some new window container system office uses, because i see it on outlook, onenote, excel, practically all of them that i use. i use no third-party plug-ins except lync and live meeting, and since they're microsoft products i don't even consider those as third-party. what comes to mind is the cute new 'customize the look of the office windows' system. i picked the geometric pattern (lol is that bad?). 

this is on a dell precision company laptop, windows 7 x64, nvidia graphics card, and office 2013 x32. it may be relevant that dameware is installed and running at all times. i wonder if anyone else with this problem also runs dameware?

I have the same issue regularilly on two machines, both Windows 7 x64. I also have the issue with VisualStudio 2013. Both machines have two monitors attached and both machines have two modern Xeons.

The probability seems to increase at machine startup, when the hard disk has heavy load.

Both machines have all patches installed, one has a modern AMD GPU and one has a modern NVidia GPU, so it is very unlikly that the issue comes from the graphics driver.

I assume that there is some timeout in the graphics stack that only sometimes occur at heavy load and is not correctly handled by office and vs at window initialization.

Best regards.

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

HI there,

I am also facing the same issue ever since i installed Office 2013. I am facing the issue in Excel and it's really disturbing. 

The case is the same. I have to first minimize the open excel and then maximize using the keyboard shortcut then only the excel file appears.

I dun think it's a graphic driver issue caz i have reinstalled the same with the driver that came with my lenovo laptop when i purchased it..

Please help me in this issue ASAP..

This shouldn't be marked as the answer.  I too am having this problem.  Sometimes Outlook, Word, and Excel go 'invisible' - I'm fairly certain it has something to do with the protected views.  It is very frustrating and happens to me 2-3 times daily.  I've reinstalled, I've ran repair. 

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 experience invisible files with Outlook messages, Word and Excel. Always happens with at least one other already open instance of the application. The invisible file can occur from opening Outlook attachements, Outlook messages and files saved to local or network locations. Repair/re-install does not resolve the issue. Workaround is to re-paint the screen. You can click File, grab the top of the window (which appears to be invisible), show desktop-then restore from task bar, etc. to make the file visible (front and center).

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

The solution that worked for me was to Alt-Space to get the Outlook window menu up, choose Resize and use the cursor keys/mouse to make the window appear again.  After I've reset the "normal" size for the window it all works fine again.

From this evidence I would guess that there is a setting for "normal window size" that gets set to 0,0 somehow thus making the window "invisible".

This has been a problem since I installed Office 2013 last year. All updates including SP1 are installed. This is clearly a widespread issue that needs some more attention from MS.

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

Having the same problem as all the other people here. your reply is not an answer and does not solve anything. do you have any other ideas?

I just had the same problem trying to open a Legacy-formatted .DOC obtained from my university's course materials server.  When I realized that this was what was happening, I closed Word using Alt+F4, and then attempted to reopen the same document.  Second try was a charm.  I'm not sure how to reproduce this bug, or where to find logs for Office15 processes.

Why is this marked as an answer? Is the this the level of quality we can expect from MS employees?

Same problem here, but mostly with Outlook 2013. If I maximize the Outlook window and close Outlook, the next time I start Outlook it will appear to not open at all. I have to click the Taskbar button twice to have Outlook appear.

We've got this issue too. Brand new install on brand new Dell i5Pro machines with Windows7 and Outlook 2013. Is this the best Microsoft can do?!

This is definitely still an issue, one of the many Office 2013 bugs it seems.

Disabling Hardware acceleration helps but it doesn't fix it totally, it still does it on the odd occasion.

It seems to affect Word and Excel mainly for us.

Started to trial office 2013 and getting this on all machines used.  Lenovo Laptops with multiple monitors but still happens when running on primary screen.  SP1 installed as well as all microsoft updates for windows and office, no change.  Affects Word Excel and Outlook - this will mean rolling back to 2010 as this isnt fit for purpose.

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

Jaynet Zhang, your answer is ridiculous.

Same issue here with Word and Excel.

I know two workarounds:

1: minimize all windows and maximize the invisible window, then it becomes visible (disadvantage: all other windows are closed)

2: When the invisible window is on top, move the mouse pointer to the invisible upper border, hold down the left mouse button and move the window a little bit, then it becomes visible.

I know that this does not solve the issue, but it makes work with office less painful.

This is still unsolved.

Coping with this issue since 2013 came out. About half the Office-Windows I open first appear invisible - so it became part of my usual workflow, to minimize newly opened Office-windows and maximize them again to see the content.

System is Windows 7 64bit, on a Lenovo Notebook (ATI GPU) and a Workstation (NVidia GPU). Both have two monitors attached.

You clearly can identify the invisible Window in the taskbar, since also it's preview is transparent.

This bug appears when opening eMail-Attachements from Outlook, but also when downloading and opening office-documents from the browser (Firefox, Chrome).

Somehow is ridiculous and a shame for MS, that this office-bug is still unfixed after two years and thousands of user are working around it every day.

Hello All,

I was able to solve this issue for from what Malcolm Leach quoted above, which was to firstly use "Alt-Space" to get the Excel window menu up, then to choose "Size" and drag the window size larger.  This solved my problem anyway.

This may possibly be a bit different to what someone else is experiencing. But this working in my instance.  Hope it helps someone else.  Good Luck!

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

I have just completed many hours of support from Dell on this nominally resolved issue.

In my case, every time I return from a hibernate with open excel or outlook windows, they are invisible, with thin black borders.  This is on a brand new computer so Dell assumed I had improperly installed software.

Now I understand that this is a know Microsoft sponsored defect.  Given that it is over a year old and affects a flagship product in a serious way, I am unable to come to grips with Microsoft's refusal to address it.

After reading all of the emails above, I tried both minimize and maximize for the frozen windows.  Both approaches seem to work, which makes appear that this BUG could be fixed.

This is a completely reproducible bug on an out of the box Office 2013 installation on a new hard drive supplied by Dell.  Nothing but Dell and Microsoft on the drive and the problem happens every time after the very first time.

The problem is that when recovering from hibernation, outlook windows are not properly restored.

Both the main outlook window and any open emails will be drawn only as thin black borders in the locations where the window should be drawn.  Why?  Alt-TAB does not help. Opening the windows from the tray does not help.

Clicking on each individual window in the tray and then clicking on the Windows key plus up arrow and then down arrow does fix the display, but it must be done individually for each window that was open at the time the computer hibernated.

Is there a plan to correct this bug?

Unfortunately having the same problems.  Recently upgraded 20 computers in our office to both Lenovo desktops and laptops.  All new installs of Office 2013.  If you open an excel file from within Outlook it minimizes to the system tray.  You need to minimize Outlook and then click on the minimized excel file.  I don't see where it happens to any other programs.  That being said 95% or more of my work is done in excel.  My boss is up in arms about it and wants it "fixed immediately" so I came searching for a resolution.  I can't believe this has been out for over a year and nothing so far.

Sorry Jaynet this did not fix the problem.

What I can tell you is that when it does go invisible, you can still see the outer shadow of where the window is supposed to be in.

It happens to Outlook and Excel and funny thing is, if I try clicking in the invisible area it actually still accepts my actions. Today I accidentally opened an email and declined a meeting request without knowing since everything was invisible. Tomorrow I might accidentally open an email with a virus.

The problem is very real. I don't know what more I can do to help troubleshoot. But rather than trying to reinstall everything over and over, its best that the root cause of the problem be found. Who knows, it might actually be a problem with a common video card, and you can then take the blame to nVidia. But Microsoft should take responsibility to help troubleshoot the problem since it only appears to happen on Office 2013.

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

Dear Jaynet

i'm experiencing the same problems as described by others. The problem occurs when returning from hibernation. It occurs only with MS Office 2013 products, including OneNote, PPT, Excel. The window boundary will be visible but its contents. The window is clickable. To get it visible again, one needs to click on the boundary edge and try to move the window. This will incur a refresh.

Resizing worked for me! Moving does not. Selecting Resize from the contextual menu and then using the arrow keys, I was shocked to see the window suddenly pop into being out of thin air! I think the Outlook window somehow was allowed to be resized vertically and horizontally to 0. Moving would not solve this. It was on my screen the whole time, but seemingly smaller than a pixel.

Thanks for your help Kevin Efurd! 

~Mark