Document Recovery Task Pane

SS - Document Recovery window
It is possible to turn the Document Recovery task pane off by selecting (View > Toolbars > Document Recovery)
If you close the task pane using the small cross in the top right corner, the task pane is only removed temporarily.
Pressing the close button in the top right corner of the task pane will delete any recovered files.

Excel 2003 enables you to recover previously opened files after Excel has crashed.
Excel will analyse every file you had open at the time and will try to fix any errors.
Depending on the extent of the errror which occurred all your files will be recovered.
Excel may even recover data that was not saved.