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

Some of our users found the workarounds in this KB helpful (although MS actually fixing the underlying bug would be nice):

http://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2768648/en-us

I have a power user at my office that is experiencing this problem fairly often.

I submitted a similar ticket here...

Let's hope Microsoft will take this seriously.

Thanks!