Opening Excel 97 gives error message

[godcom]

One of my users has a win2000 machine (sp2) running Office 97. Every time she opens Excel, she gets an error message stating "a document with the same name is already open,YOu cannot open two documents with the same name even if they are in different folders."

I tried the Microsoft knowledge base to no avail.Any ideas?

 

[DaleWatson123321]

It is very likely that the following is your situation...

Your user has a copy of the same file in the following two folders:

1) Excel's "Start-up" folder... C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\STARTUP

2) Another folder that is referenced in the user's Excel settings - under (from the menu) Tools - Options - "General" tab - "Alternate startup file location".

Excel operates such that ALL files which happen to be located in this folder specified under "Alternate startup file location", will be loaded automatically whenever Excel is launched.

Therefore, if the user has a file by the SAME name in these two separate folders, Excel will attempt to load them BOTH, and thus the ERROR message will be encountered.

The solution, of course, is to eliminate one of the two files.

Better still, perhaps, is to suggest to the user that he/she not use the "Alternate startup file location" UNLESS there is a "special" reason to do so, and a FULL appreciation for what to expect.

I have encountered a situation in the past where, because of lack of knowledge of this "Alternate startup..." option, a user happened to enter a folder where a HUGE number of files were located. The result was that EACH time the user went to load Excel, ALL these files could NOT be loaded into memory. This created a "serious" problem, because with Excel running out of memory, it could no longer function. This was awhile back, but I believe the option was to re-install Excel.

I hope this helps you, and others who might happen to want to "experiment" with this option of "Alternate startup file location".

Regards, ...Dale Watson dwatson@bsi.gov.mb.ca

 

[suxxxann]

I had the same error message when I installed office 97 on win 2000 and I was sure I wasn't opening another file with the same name. also it had the same message even saving new files with unique names. I had to un-install office 97 and re-install it for other reasons and it stopped so that's my suggestion.

 

[Hasit]

One other option. Take a look at this FAQ:

faq68-1371

and try and start Excel without any add-ins etc. If you don't get the problem, then try moving any files at that are loaded (in directory XLSTART) to see where the problem lies.

You may wish to re-register Excel through the switch listed in the FAQ.