Excel 97, A document with the name X is already open 2

[runwvjosh]

I'm not having this problem, but several others in my building are.

When they attempt to open a document from either My Recent Documents or from the Windows Explorer, they receive an error message that "A document with that file name is already open, etc." If they click OK to use the second file, the file opens and operates as expected with no further issues.

An interesting quirk to this whole thing is that if the Excel program is already running, this error does not occur.

Any help would be appreciated. Opinions expressed by this user are not necessarily the opinions of my employer.

http://www.westunionbank.com

 

[xlhelp]

Tools, Options, General, uncheck "Ignore other
applications"

 

[runwvjosh]

Thanks. That did work, but now instead of getting the error in Excel, they get an error message in their "My Documents" that says it can't find the file (even though it opened it). Opinions expressed by this user are not necessarily the opinions of my employer.

http://www.westunionbank.com

 

[xlhelp]

Would you mind posting the actual error?

Thanks.

 

[runwvjosh]

The original error reads as follows:
"A document with the name X.xls is already open. You cannot open two documents with the same name, even if the documents are in different folders. To open the second document, either close the document that's already open, or rename one of the documents."

The My Documents error that showed up when I made the suggested change is as follows:
"Windows cannot find 'C:\Documents and Settings\USER\My Documents\X.xls.' Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the start button, and then click search."

Under Tools, Options, General in Excel, there is nothing in the line for Alternate Startup File Location.

A Search for any of the file names shows only one existing file. I'm completely at a loss. Opinions expressed by this user are not necessarily the opinions of my employer.

http://www.westunionbank.com

 

[xlhelp]

Try this:

Go to Windows Explorer,; depending on the OS you are using it will be, View Options or Tools, Folder options

Select File Types tab, choose Microsoft Excel Worksheet in the Registered File Types box, and click Edit.

In the Actions box, choose Open, and then Edit.

In the Application Used To Perform Action box, append a space and "%1" (with the quotation marks) to the end of the line. For example, the corrected line will look like:

C:\MSOffice\Excel\excel.exe "%1"

Click OK, and click Close twice.

 

[runwvjosh]

I apologize for the late reply. I've been on vacation and just returned today.

I attempted to try the %1 suggestion. The %1 was already present, though not in quotes. I tried putting quotes around it and also removing the %1. In both cases, I received an error message: "The specified program could not be found. Make sure the file name and path are correct."

The screen was as follows, just in case there's anything amiss that you might notice.

Action: Open
Application Used to Perform Action: has the %1 but no quotes
USE DDE: is checked.
Application: Excel
DDE Application Not Running: this field is empty
Topic: system.

I also noticed that in the File Types menu, there was a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet noting XLS as the extension and also a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet noting XLB as the extension. Would deleting the XLB item correct this?

Thank you for taking time to offer these suggestions.

Opinions expressed by this user are not necessarily the opinions of my employer.

http://www.westunionbank.com

 

[xlhelp]

This is how things should look:

Action:
Open

Application used to perform Action:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\EXCEL.EXE" /e
including the quotation marks

Use DDE:
is checked

DDE Message:
[open("%1&quot]

Application:
Excel

DDE application not Running:
blank

Topic:
System

 

[runwvjosh]

Before I try that, when the Action is "New" the /e is at the end of the

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\EXCEL.EXE" /e

Is it a problem for "New" and "Open" to have the same item at the end of the above line?
Opinions expressed by this user are not necessarily the opinions of my employer.

http://www.westunionbank.com

 

[xlhelp]

No problem.

 

[runwvjosh]

Crud...that didn't work either. I made the change, and now when she tries to open a file on her computer she gets a series of File Not Found Errors.
'C:\Documents.xls' could not be found
'and.xls' could not be found
'Settings\USER\My.xls' could not be found
'Documents\Processing.xls' could not be found
'sheet.xls' could not be found.

Then it opens the file.

Also of note, in the area where you had me add the \e, it is automatically adding a %1 after it. I delete it, but when I come back to that screen after attempting to open a file, the %1 is back.

And a new problem...it will not allow me to change the Application Used To Perform Action box back to its original state, though I haven't yet tried just resetting the defaults. Opinions expressed by this user are not necessarily the opinions of my employer.

http://www.westunionbank.com

 

[xlhelp]

Please make sure everything was typed as indicated. Your last post mentions \e. Please note it's not \e. It is /e.

Also make sure the brackets are square and then curved in the DDE field

If that doesn't work, do this:

Go to Start, Run (hopefully the path you have is the same)
type
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe /regserver
Click OK

Please note the back slashes and forward slashes.

 

[runwvjosh]

Bad News and Great News.

The bad news is that I had it typed in correctly earlier. More bad news is that when I went to "Run" and typed in the "/ regserver" line, I got an error message the "Windows cannot find 'c:\Program' "

The good news is that I hit on the right combination. You had originally said to put the %1 in quotation marks. That didn't work for some reason. When that didn't work, we tried the /e without quotation marks. What I hadn't done yet was put quotation marks around the c:\program part and the %1 part (originally, there were no quotation marks around the c:\program part or the %1 part).

When I did that it worked. In the end the line read as follows for Application Used to Perform Action:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" "%1"

So basically, all the problem was from the beginning was missing two sets of quotation marks.

Thank you again for your patience and help. Opinions expressed by this user are not necessarily the opinions of my employer.

http://www.westunionbank.com