Ok, I wasn't sure. I did google it a bit, and ran across one possibility: One guy had this problem and it turned out there was a password on the workbook; he removed the password and the record-macro ability came back. Of course, that's just one possibility.

I've never run across this before, myself. When you say the VBA editor tells you there are no open projects, I take it you mean you open a workbook with macros embedded (at least, there were macros in it before this problem), and now the VBA explorer window shows only Excel worksheets, no modules? Or if not that, exactly, then what?

And what happens when you try to insert a new module there?

Oh, and you say one day your machine hiccoughed: Do you remember more exactly? Not sure it would tell us anything, but you never know.

Interesting that the Powerpoint macro capability should die at the same time Excel's did, but not Word. Maybe there's a clue there. What about the other apps—Outlook, Publisher, Office itself, Access if you have it?

As far as I know, all the Office apps have the ability to use VBA macros. But not all of them can record a macro. Excel can; Outlook cannot; Word can. I never use PowerPoint—have never even opened it before today, on this machine—but when I look at it now, I notice that recording a macro doesn't seem to be one of the options in the Developer tab. But you say macros don't work, so presumably you knew where to look, which implies you've done it before. Were you able to record macros in PP before this?