When trying to troubleshoot Microsoft Excel startup problems, it can be very helpful to utilize the command line switches at startup.
Start
Run
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /s
/s is safemode, Excel starts without any third-party add-ins
/r opens a specified file in read-only mode i.e. /r "c:\testfile.xls"
/o forces Excel to re-register itself. The registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\xx\Excel is rewritten
xx - 8.0 = Excel 97, 9.0 = Excel 2000, etc
/regserver forces Excel to rewrite all related registry keys and file associations
/unregserver unregisters Excel
Source and more switches: Microsoft Support kb291288