Get & Transform Data (Power Query)

Shawn Lorusso Well, I see there was no answer to this. I have essentially the same question in December 2020. My installation of Excel is from my Office 365 Family version. Everything is up to date. Everything else works fine. I had not used getting data for quite some time but I wanted to import data from a text file and perhaps see the old time legacy wizard that worked just fine for the years I had used it.

Windows 10 Pro, 64 bit installation, as I said everything is up to date.

I never get to the text file. I open an empty new workbook and go to Data, Get Data; select from file and then the csv/txt option. What I get is a dialog message telling me Excel is not properly installed and to please repair or reinstall it.

I may add that I tried both with the online version and my local installation, getting the same message either way.

So, I went to the Control Panel and found the Office installation, selected change. I first tried the quick repair. No change. Then I tried the online repair. Same result. I did a full reinstallation from my Account. Same result every time.

I contacted support chat and after a half hour of doing exactly what I had already done, the support person 'escalated' the problem and put me in touch with someone who could provide technical assistance. What was he providing for the first half hour?

Then the new technical support guy wanted to take remote control for troubleshooting! I declined, telling him I was not a newbie and anything he could express I could do more quickly than he could. 

He proceeded to make suggestions and I proved to him I could conduct them all faster than even he could. He went through the same stuff the previous non-tech guy did, then sent me links recommending I test the installations by creating a new Administrative user.

I did that and the tests still came up with the same result.

At that point he recommended a complete un-installation and new clean installation of Office 365. He sent me a link to an article that basically recited the Microsoft policy of not supporting any registry edits and their disclaimer of any responsibility if following their instructions broke my Windows installation!

That's a weasel cop out.

Yes, I can do that, but I guarantee you that I didn't do anything to change the registry before this happened. What happened to the OS doing its checks and repairs of corrupt system or Microsoft's own software installation files?

My drives are relatively new. They all have SMART. I ran a Performance Monitor System Diagnostic and everything Passed without any warnings or errors.

Seriously, WTF? Does anybody have a real idea of what is going on here?

I saved the chat session and am planning to send it to Microsoft Support as a Feedback. I can't believe they have no fix for this! They don't seem to have a clue themselves!