Product:
Cognos Controller 8.5

Symptom:
Error when you try to start Microsoft Excel from inside Cognos Controller by click on the excel icon on controller menu, or start a company – data entry session.

Error Message for the user:

Information
The Excel-link is not installed.
OK

Problem:
This can happen both with Excel 2003 and Excel 2007. Only seen on Terminal Servers/Citrix servers there the Cognos Controller client is installed.

If you check inside Excel under the Add-in dialog you see that ControllerXL exist instead for the “IBM Cognos 8 Controller Link”, this may be a sign that you need to reinstall Microsoft Office with all the add ones.

Solution:
(only use this solution after you have tried all the other suggestions you may have found)
(like check excel.exe.config exits, caspol –lg, reinstall of Cognos Controller excel link)

Uninstall the Cognos Controller excel add in from controller panels Add/remove programs.
Uninstall Microsoft Office completely.
Reinstall Microsoft Office (2003) and select all shared options in the Microsoft Office package.
Install the Cognos Controller excel add in from the file controllerclient.msi.

Reboot terminal server and test again.