Skin not applied when clicking associated document

Here's the way my ancient Excel 2003 works, maybe it'll help.

When I first launch Excel, either by shortcut or by opening an associated document, it does not pick up the skin that I'm using.  Re-applying the same skin does not help.  It will at some point pick it up, I'm not exactly sure when, other than at least after the machine sleeps and wakes up, but I think it will pick it up before then.  Once Excel is skinned, it doesn't matter if I open a spreadsheet directly by clicking on a document.  (Clicking on a document in my case does not launch an additional instance of Excel if it's already running.)

If I have Excel open, even if it's not skinned yet, I can apply a different skin and Excel will skin immediately.

So I leave Excel open all the time so it carries the skin, and maybe open it and apply a different skin then switch back to the one I really want to use.

I'm wondering if that's really what you're seeing.  If Word actually picks up the skin that's being used when you first launch it, you're one step ahead of me.   

(Small price to pay for still being able to use an ancient pet program).   

And I thought I was the only one who still uses Office 2003!

I just tried running Excel and it was not skinned. I will leave it running and see what happens, like you suggested.

However, I noticed a difference between Excel and Word. If I run Word, it gets skinned as long as I do not specify a document when I run it. That does not happen with Excel. Excel does not get skinned no matter how I run it. I only use one spreadsheet and I always run it from a shortcut so, until today, I had assumed that it does not get skinned for the same reason Word does not get skinned if I specify a document.

 I do know that both Word and Excel are designed to use the "Luna" theme, from the XP days. I also know that if they do not find the Luna theme, they are supposed to have grey menus. That's how it worked for me when I was using Win 7 (they were grey). Now, however, with Win 10, I get the blue menus that look a little similar to the XP luna. Personally, I don't like the blue and I prefer the grey.

So...I have no idea why Word gets skinned if run by itself and Excel does not. I suspect that I might have done something that made a difference for Word... A few days ago, when I first got Window Blinds, I was playing with the "per application" settings using Word. I tried every setting to see what it does. I no longer have a "per application" profile for Word but it comes up grey if I run it without specifying a document.

One of these days, if I have time, I will try to look through the Word and Excel settings in the registry....maybe there is something helpful there.

I usually don't have the patience to wait for Excel to decide to pick up the skin, I usually do this:

and then leave it running.  Once it's running it'll apply a different skin on demand.

Odd (or maybe not) that Word would act differently.  After you talked about changing the per application settings for Word it made me wonder if Word might actually use a different exe when you click on a doc, I don't know.  I don't have Word installed or a 2003 version of it.

It does seem like once you had Word running in a skinned state it would remain in a skinned state when you click on a doc, unless you're opening a new instance of Word when you do that.

It works just like you described:

I start Excel and it is not skinned. I change skin and then change it again back to the skin I want to use. Excel is skinned and as long as it is running, new spreadsheets I open are skinned.

Word is skinned as soon as I start it as long as I do not specify a document. If I specify a document, it works like Excel.

There is a difference in the way Excel and Word work. I think Word loads a new instance with every document. With Excel, if I have several spreadsheets open and I exit by clicking X on the title bar, all the spreadsheets close. On the other hand, with Word, I can exit and the other documents remain open. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. I don't think it uses a different exe to open a document. It shows the same exe on task manager. However, I'm beginning to suspect that it might have something to do with security permissions. When Word or Excel are running, if I right click on them on Task Manager and view "properties," under the security tab it shows 2 groups: All Application Packages and Restricted Application Packages. Other programs that are running do not show those two groups. The permissions on those two groups are limited (they cannot modify). Also, Word and Excel have "System"  as the owner whereas other applications show me as the owner.  I might experiment with changing permissions at some point but not this weekend because I have a lot of work to do and I cannot afford to spend time fixing things if I break anything!

It does sound like it's creating new instances.  There would be a couple of advantages to that.  If one instance crashed, hopefully the other instances would remain in tact.  Also, I'm thinking it's probably a 32-bit program which would have less memory availability - some of those Word docs can get pretty huge, or at least Word can open some pretty huge text files.

It might behave differently if you use the File/Open command or the Open icon from within the already running and skinned window.  However, if it does, you would probably also lose the benefits of the individual instances.

It does sound like you make serious use of Word.  Personally, my priority when it matters, is that the program works right.