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Home → Troubleshooting → @RISK with Projects → "Error linking the opened workbook with the associated .MPP file."

6.21. "Error linking the opened workbook with the associated .MPP file."

Applies to: @RISK 6.x–7.x, Professional and Industrial Editions

I have an Excel file with a linked MPP file. When I open the Excel file, @RISK opens Microsoft Project, but I get this message

Error linking the opened workbook with the associated .MPP file. Check that the file can be properly opened in Microsoft Project.

This may be a problem with your particular Excel workbook or your particular MPP file. Or, it may be a more general problem. Here's how to narrow down the trouble.

First, close all open instances of Excel, then reopen @RISK. Click Help » Example Spreadsheets. In the table of contents, click Simulation with Microsoft Project, and then select one example. The first one, Correlations.xlsx, is as good as any other.

If @RISK misbehaves in the same way on our example, it's likely that there's a problem in your installation of one or more of @RISK or Office or Project.

1. Re-register the Visual Basic runtime, by following the procedure in Visual Basic 6 Runtime.
2. Close Excel and Project, and double-click your MPP file. Does it open in Project? If not, you should repair Microsoft Project to re-establish the connection with MPP files.
3. Even if the MPP file does open Project when you double-click it, Project still might not be the default application for MPP files in your copy of Windows. Follow the directions in Microsoft's article Change which programs Windows 7 uses by default or How-to Geek's article How to Set Your Default Apps in Windows 10.
4. If you've done all of the above, without success, please run our diagnostics for software version 7.x or diagnostics for software version 6.x and send the file to Palisade Tech Support. In your email, be sure to give your serial number (the SN from the Help » About @RISK screen), and mention the nature of the difficulty you're having.

On the other hand, if @RISK opens Project and the Correlations.mpp file, and if you can perform a simulation and get meaningful results, then your installations of @RISK and Office seem to be okay. That would mean there's a problem with your particular data files.

1. Try re-importing the MPP file, and create a couple of inputs and outputs. If you can now simulate, the MPP file is good but somehow your old Excel file became corrupted. Save the new Excel file, but unfortunately you'll have to re-create your @RISK modeling features, or manually copy them in from the corrupted Excel file. If you want to copy them from the corrupted file, copy parts of sheets, not whole sheets:
   (a) Open the workbook without @RISK running and copy the columns that have distributions into a new blank workbook.
   (b) Reimport the associated MPP, and copy those columns of distributions into the reimported workbook.
2. If you still can't simulate after re-importing the file, then it looks like the MPP file is corrupt. Open a new blank project, and then copy the contents of your old, corrupt project to the new one. Close Excel and Project, then reopen @RISK and try importing the new file.

If the problem was that your MPP file or Excel file was corrupt, you may want to uninstall and reinstall Office and Project to reduce the likelihood of a recurrence. We had one customer report that he repaired a corrupted file, but then about a week later another file turned up corrupted. The uninstall/reinstall seemed to fix the problem for good.

Last edited: 2018-10-25