Compatibility issues

[BostjanPerdan]

Hi!

I have a problem with an application I have made in VBA for Excel and hope you will be able to help me out.

I have made a small database in Excel with user interface, which is shared between several users in our company.

The problem is that not all users use the same version of MS Excel (Office) and some compatibility issues arise. I believe I use one of the latest versions of MS Excel available in the company. The problem arises when another user with an older version of Excel opens the application and saves the changes he or she has made (to the spreadsheet via user interface but not the VBA code). After that the application won’t run on my computer but still works on other computers which presumably use the same (older) version of software. I have also noticed that the file size reduces from 370 KB to 330 KB after the application has been opened and saved by another user with an older version of Excel.

This doesn’t make much sense to me … I would understand if my application didn’t run on the older version of Excel but not the other way around as in my case. Is there a way to tell VBA not to save any changes to the VBA code which might have been done automatically during the compilation on another computer? That is, only changes to the spreadsheet should be saved.

Is it possible to append certain libraries to the VBA code that would enable it to run on the older version of Excel without severely changing the code during compilation (I assume this might be the cause)?

Any help or helpful suggestions will be appreciated!

Cheers,
Bostjan

 

[fredericofonseca]

Hum.. I dont know exactly what you are doing, but, as a rule of thumb, you should have your "application" in a independed workbook, defined as add-in as a obvious option, and have this application open and write to whatever public/shared worksheets required.

This add-in should be installed into the default users add-in folders, and not shared between users.

Regards

Frederico Fonseca
SysSoft Integrated Ltd

http://www.syssoft-int.com

 

[xlbo]

Easiest solution is for your company to ensure that its users run on a consistent platform.....

 

[BostjanPerdan]

Frederico,

Thanks for the reply!

I have decided to first separate my application and database, program the application to automatically save data in the database, and instruct users not to save any changes in the application.
If this doesn’t work out, I plan to convert my application, which will be at that point a standalone *.xls file, into an add-in. I am a bit cautious, because I have never used this procedure before bur everything works out OK.

Cheers,
Bostjan