How to fix all Excel files opening as just a grey background (2003 OFFICE)

[Mark]

How to fix all Excel files opening as just a grey background (2003 OFFICE)

You may be having an issue that when you open an excel document a grey background appears as if the document is minimised in Excel and a lot of options within word are greyed out.

If you do File > Print preview, can you see your worksheet's data?

After that, try:
Window > arrange > Tiled

If that didn't work...

Tools > Options > General > Ignore other applications (uncheck it)

and.. as a last resort

Close Excel and go to start > run then type "excel /unregserver"
then
"excel /regserver"

The /unregserver and /regserver stuff resets the windows registry to excel's factory defaults.