Excel Crash: Visual Studio (10) Tools for Offce Add-in -- vs10exceladaptor

Solution

Solution thus-far has just been to disable the add-in for all users. We don't know of anyone actively using this add-in so that works for us. If you need the add-in I would look towards compatibility. 0xC0000005 typically indicates that a program tried to access memory it's not allowed to. This could mean another plug-in isn't playing nice, or you might try disabling DEP (though this is a pain for office, and more than a bit of a security risk).

To disable add-in for all users, found the best way was to log in as admin, find the excel executable (excel.exe) > right click > run as admin. Then go to File > Options > add-in > com add-ins > go. Then uncheck the boxe(s) for the "Visual Studio Tools for Office Design-Time Adaptor for Excel".

Story

Had some users complaining about excel crashing on our terminal server. This is a terminal (RDS) server that students use to remotely access lab applications via thin-clients, so it has just about every program under the sun installed on it. I mention this only because this means we have about 1000 different excel add-ins loading/available which is what I expect is causing the underlying issue. Also worth noting, Thin clients connect via XenDesktop (7.1); this could also be a cause of the error.



Other notes on server: Server 2008R2 (fully updated, x64), Office 2013 x86

Looking at the even logs, I see the excel crash (Error, Aplication Error, Event ID: 1000)

Faulting application name: EXCEL.EXE, version: 15.0.4535.1507, time stamp: 0x52282875
Faulting module name: EXCEL.EXE, version: 15.0.4535.1507, time stamp: 0x52282875
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x0005a802
Faulting process id: 0x2380
Faulting application start time: 0x01cf9c61a803a93c
Faulting application path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\EXCEL.EXE
Faulting module path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office15\EXCEL.EXE
Report Id: ed04ac54-0854-11e4-9867-d4bed9f3434f

Which doesn't give us much. In past experience, 0xC0000005 is a generic "Memory Access violation" error -- a program tried to access memory it didn't have permission to.  The next entry in the even log is a bit more useful (Error, Microsoft Office 15, EventID 2001)

Microsoft Excel: Rejected Safe Mode action : Excel is running into problems with the 'vs10exceladaptor' add-in. If this keeps happening, disable this add-in and check for available updates. Do you want to disable it now?.

This appears to be something that gets installed with visual studio, no idea what it does. I went ahead and disabled it for all users (see notes in Solution) since I'm not aware of anyone using that add-in. Worth noting that I initially tried disabling the add-in through the registry (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Office\Excel\Addins\VS10ExcelAdaptor\ -- Set LoadBehavior to 0) but that didn't seem to have any effect.

"Display" pane for SAP analysis for Microsoft Excel 1.4 Doesn't open.

I've been having ever so much fun getting pre-office 2013 add-ins to work in Excel 2013. For the most part adding them to the XLSTART folder in the office install directory (so they load automatically with excel) has fixed the problem. This only really works with XLA/XLAM type add-ins though. The last couple of days I've been working with one that launches via an exe and shows in excel as a .dll.

The add-in is "Analysis for Microsoft Excel" version 1.4, it's an add-in associated with SAP. The add-in is launched via an executable (BiSharedAddinLauncher.exe) and shows up in excel > file > optionas > add-ins> as a .dll (bishared07addinshim.dll).

The Short Version

The problem ended up being the start page (the new office 2013 thing that displays a bunch of templates and adds extra clicks before you can actually get work done). Disabling the start page (through group policy, you'll have to download/"install" the office 2013 ADMX files from microsoft) allowed the add-in to load properly.

The Long Version

So when we tried to launch the add-in on most computers (worked on some, which was weird) we would see the add-in load, and the appropriate tab on the ribbon would appear. Most functions would also work. However trying to open the "Display" pane didn't work. The icon would light-up like it was open, but the panel would never show up. 

This problem occurred on windows 7 x86 with office 2013 x86 and on a windows 2008R2 with office 2013 x86 running RDS. 

After much reinstalling (including the entire office suite) I finally found that launching the add-in once excel was already open (file > options > add-ins > com add-ins > go ) worked. This suggested that, for whatever reason, the add-in was not fully loaded when it was launched at the same time as excel. Obviously, adding the add-in in this manor each time you wanted to use it would be much less convenient that clicking the executable from the start menu. 

On a whim, a whim fueled mostly by my hate of the start page, I decided to disable the start page and low-and-behold the problem stopped. The add-in and all of its features work like they're supposed to. I can't imagine why the start page in excel would keep an add-in from loading properly. 

Oh, on a semi-related note, the "excel is not the current default program for all spreadsheet files" dialog also blocks add-ins from loading; blocks them entirely, they never load, you have to click  "don't show this again" and re-launch the add-in to get around it.