matlab's xlsread causes Excel to crash - how to stop this?

Using Matlab's xlsread function to read excel files (in the COM server mode) often causes windows to display the 'Excel stopped working' message. The xlsread function returns the correct data from the spread sheet and matlab continues fine, but these crash messages are annoying and will eventually cause me to miss an actual problem as I now simply click them away.

Has anyo开发者_运维技巧ne a good solution to this?

The asker posted the answer he found himself as a comment:

I think this is happening because the Excel files were from an earlier version of Excel, and Excel was trying its best to ask me if I wanted to recalculate the files before saving, but couldn't. Opening each file manually then saving and closing, made these go away.