Windows 10: Excel Icon on taskbar does not open file, only program

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.

 

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 *Smile. 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.