MS Excel question

[shmokes]

Okay, anyone who's familiar with MS Office knows that when you open two of the same file type -- Word, Excel, etc. -- two instances of the program are opened, rather than both the files being opened in a single instance of the program (as they would be in Photoshop or WordPerfect, for example).  I understand that this can, perhaps, be changed by unchecking the box in options that says, "Windows in Taskbar".

My problem is that I've got a machine that is suddenly opening Excel files in the same instance and I don't want it to.  The "Windows in Taskbar" box is checked, and the taskbar, indeed, makes it look like there are multiple instances of Excel opened, but there clearly isn't.  This is a machine with multiple monitors and I need to be able to have two instances opened simultaneously with one on one monitor and one on the other, but it won't let me do that anymore.  MS Word still works fine, so it is a problem exclusive to Excel. 

Anyone know what the cause might be?

[J_K_M_A_N]

Which version are you using? XP? 2000? 97?

J_K_M_A_N

[J_K_M_A_N]

Just found this:

Have resolved the problem after 2 reinstalls etc that did nothing
The solution is in the Windows Explorer, File Types settings - Advanced
There I UNCHECKED "Browse in same Window"
Now it works fine

Good luck.

J_K_M_A_N

[shmokes]

XP (2002)

Tried that and it didn't work.  Thanks though.  If anything else occurs I appreciate suggestions.  I'm still stuck on it.

[jbox]

Check out PowerPoint too. I have office XP and I always thought that Word was the only program that seperated the windows, since the other programs have had a single-window interface since day 1. 

[s4tay]

shmokes,

I have that same problem and its been bugging me for a while so this thread made me go hunting and I think I have the answer. BTW, I am running Win2000 with Excel 2003.

If you start Excel and go the the Tools/Options menu, under the View tab you need to check the "Windows in Taskbar" box in the Show section.

Worked for me, hope it helps you.

[cdbrown]

Schmokes - can you take a screenshot of this problem please.

[shmokes]

I'll get a few screenshots tomorrow.  I'm in a different office today.

S4tay,  yeah, I found that suggestion while I was hunting for a solution and it doesn't help me.  When "Windows in Taskbar" is checked the taskbar indeed indicates that multiple instances of Excel are running, but clicking between the icons on the taskbar only changes which workbook is active in the single Excel window.  And if I go into the Window menu in Excel I can clearly arrange the workbooks by tiling, etc. and see that both workbooks (excel files) are opened in the same instance of Excel despite what the taskbar suggests by showing two separate buttons as though two instances were opened.

[cdbrown]

What OS are you running - XP can group them in the taskbar.  I'm finding it hard to visualise what's going wrong.

[shmokes]

I don't want them grouped in the taskbar.  Let's say you have two different Excel files on your desktop and you double-click both of them.  Normally it would open each file in its own instance of Excel, so as long as they aren't maximized you could resize the windows so that both workbooks were visible simultaneously side-by-side.  Or in this case the user has multiple monitors and wants to maximize both windows, with one file on one monitor and the other file on the other monitor.

But suddenly, although the taskbar shows that two instances of Excel are open, both files appear in the same Excel window, in much the same way that two JPGs would be open in the same instance of Photoshop, with one tiled behind the other.  So I am locked into a single instance of Excel.  Normally each instance of Excel would have it's own toolbars (open, save, print, file, edit, view, etc.).  But I'm just getting a single instance with one set of toolbars, but both workbooks (excel files) open -- one behind the other.  I can switch between the two, but it's impossible to view them simultaneously on separate monitors.  This isn't normal.  It's only just started acting this way for no apparent reason.

Clicking the respective buttons on the taskbar that represent each file, by the way, just brings that file to the forground and sends the other file to the background, within that single instance of Excel.

Also, I already uninstalled and reinstalled and even ran a command that should have reset all the MS Office regestry settings to default, to no avail.

I hope this is a better explanation.  Thanks for all your time (and hopefully your help    ).

[J_K_M_A_N]

How about this?

This is somewhat related to th eproblem for some people and may explain a bit more.

I think I have figured out this stupid Excel thing.

Excel has this bast%^%^ized MDI SDI thing.

I think most people run Excel with it

[J_K_M_A_N]

This way seems to work also. I just tried it.

You might try going into the file associations (via Windows Explorer ->
Tools, Folder Options, File Types) and for XLS files eliminate "uses DDE"
from the Open command.  Replace it with a " %1" on the command line (after
the "/e").

Good luck.

J_K_M_A_N

[jbox]

Huh, all this time I thought it was just that the feature didn't work in Excel. Thanks. 

[shmokes]

That looks like EXACTLY my problem.  I'll be able to try it out in an hour or so.  I'll let you know if it works.  Thanks so much.

[shmokes]

 

Thanks so much J_K_M_A_N !   That did the trick.  I hadn't had any luck with Google and I'm generally pretty good at wording my search engine queries.  Thanks again.

[J_K_M_A_N]

Thanks so much J_K_M_A_N !   That did the trick.  I hadn't had any luck with Google and I'm generally pretty good at wording my search engine queries.  Thanks again.

Well, I guess you aren't as good as I am.

YOU SUCK AT GOOGLE!

J_K_M_A_N



You're welcome.

[cdbrown]

PWNED


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