Excel Icon on taskbar does not open file, only program

Bringing this back from the dead.

I've had the same issue with Excel 2016 and Windows 10. I have the Excel icon pinned to my taskbar with frequent files pinned to the jumplist under it. I recently upgraded from Office 2003 to Office 2016 via 365. Previously my files opened just fine from the jumplist, but now it simply opens a blank Excel window (read: when I click the pinned file it opens the Excel program, but it's simply blank and I'm required to manually browse to my file to open it). It behaves the same whether it's a pinned file or a recent file. I decided to fiddle with it and today I discovered something interesting. If I save my file to OneDrive I'm able to open it from the jumplist. However, saving the file locally on my PC it opens the blank Excel window. It seems like something is broken within the jumplist that prevents local files from opening correctly. There is a noticeable difference when Excel is starting up depending on if you're attempting to open a local file or an online file. I haven't found a fix yet, but figured I'd mention it here since this was the only real post I found that related to my issue.

Wynona said:

Can you tell me how you create the jump list? If that could work, I want it, since I work with quite a few spreadsheets. So, I'd like to test it.

Pin the program to your taskbar and drag the file to the icon on the taskbar (I haven't tried this with a OneDrive stored file though). Another way is to open the file, close it, then right click the icon on the taskbar. It'll list recent files which can be pinned (both local and online files work). Unfortunately, locally stored files do not open as I mentioned. OneDrive stored files do though. Hope that helps.

Wynona said:

OK, I tried it and it works for me. Maybe you should repin them?

I pinned Excel to the taskbar, then drug three files to it and pinned them to Excel 2016. I've opened each one by right clicking on the Excel icon, then a left click on the one I want to open. Voila!

What version of Office are you running? No luck for me and I'm running version 16. I unpinned my files, unpinned the shortcut, cleared the recent files, then rebooted. I repinned the shortcut to the taskbar then dragged the files to the icon to pin them again. Attempting to open them returned the same blank Excel window I've been seeing.

Edit: I just realized that double clicking my files also returns a blank Excel window. I'm going to try a repair install and see if that fixes it. It's really aggravating that's for sure.

Edit 2: The online repair install fixed my issue. Should have tried that from the beginning :). It's always the simplest things that get overlooked.

Just wanted to update this thread in case someone else has a similar problem. This has been RESOLVED.
It first started back in 2016, and in 2017 the issue got worse; I was frequently opening an excel file
and getting an "unlicensed product" error- that has happened at least 3 times in the last 6 months or so.
Tried the "repair" option in Control Panel under the Office 2013 entry, that did work at first, but in the last two it didn't. In the last two, with chat help from Microsoft support, they were able to re-install Office 2013
and resolve the unlicensed product. Now we have all experienced expertise differences from one agent to another- only the last one resolved the jump-list issue. But now I can again open different files, they get recorded on the jump-list and are all working.
Now the interesting thing is that this was never a problem with Word jump-lists from the same Office 2013.
BUT.BUT BUT. Since upgrading from win 10 v1607 to v1703(two weeks ago), then 1709(last week), jump-lists don't work in other programs pinned to the taskbar- still fine in Excel jump-list.
I'm gonna live with that.