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think-cell disappears unexpectedly

Problem

I have think-cell installed. think-cell works fine in PowerPoint. After restarting PowerPoint, think-cell suddenly disappears.

  • think-cell is not shown in the list of Microsoft Office Add-ins in PowerPoint: File > Options > Add-Ins.
  • think-cell is not shown in the list of installed programs: Control Panel > Programs > Programs and Features

Reinstalling think-cell fixes the problem only temporarily.

Explanation

If an automatic update of think-cell is available, the old version is uninstalled. However, the installation of the new version might fail, e.g., due to interference by a security tool.

This problem occurred in the past with Trend Micro security tools. For details on this, please click:

Opening PowerPoint or Excel starts the automatic update service of think-cell. If an automatic update is available, think-cell first tries to uninstall the previous version. Trend Micro's engine was not able to close a file handle, which resulted in C:\Program files(x86)\think-cell not being deleted. Executing the new think-cell installer then raised the following error:

Error 1303. The installer has insufficient privileges to access this directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\think-cell.

This lead to a termination of the update process and deletion of C:\Program Files(x86)\think-cell.

Solution

Trend Micro fixed the issue.

  • A standard update should suffice for Trend Micro Home and Home Office products (e.g., Maximum Security).
  • The various Trend Micro Business products may have different update requirements based on the product and your environment. We received confirmation from a think-cell customer that their problem was solved by an update of Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security to version 10.0, Service Pack 1, Build 2185. If in doubt, please contact your Trend Micro support directly so that they can provide you with the correct solution for your Trend Micro product and version.

Contact support

If you are experiencing the same problem although Trend Micro is not installed, please contact our support team.

Please send us the think-cell log files. For this, open PowerPoint or Excel and go to Insert > think-cell > Tools Tools Menu icon. > Request Support. The log files will be automatically attached to a new email.

If neither works, you can find the log files as explained below:

  1. Open a new Windows Explorer window.

  2. Type in %LOCALAPPDATA%\think-cell into the address field, and press Enter

  3. Please send all files with the extension .log contained in this folder to our support team. These files may include any of the following: POWERPNT_log.log, EXCEL_log.log, TCMAIL_log.log, TCUPDATE_log.log, TCRUNXL_log.log, TCASR_log.log, PPTTC_log.log, setup_think-cell_xxxxx_log.log.

  4. If you want to browse to the directory:

    The full default filepath is C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\think-cell. Replace USERNAME with your username.

    If you cannot find this folder, it is probably set to invisible. You can change that in Windows Explorer by checking:

    • Windows 7:
      Organize → Folder and search options → View → Show hidden files and folders.
    • Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10:
      View → Show/hide → Hidden Items.

    In addition, if think-cell is active, please click on Tools Tools Menu icon. → About in the think-cell toolbar and send us a screenshot of the think-cell info window.

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