Microsoft KB Archive/930480

Knowledge Base

You may experience symptoms when you use the Personal Macro Workbook if you run Excel 2007 and Excel 2003 in a side-by-side installation

Article ID: 930480

Article Last Modified on 10/15/2007

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APPLIES TO

• Microsoft Office Excel 2007
• Microsoft Office Excel 2003

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SYMPTOMS

If you run Microsoft Office Excel 2007 and Microsoft Office Excel 2003 in a side-by-side installation, you may experience one or more of the following symptoms when you use the Personal Macro Workbook:

Note In Excel 2007, the Personal Macro Workbook is named Personal.xlsb. In Excel 2003, the Personal Macro Workbook is named Personal.xls.

Symptom 1

If the Personal.xls workbook exists in the XLSTART folder, Excel 2007 loads the workbook. If you make no changes to the Personal Macro Workbook, the workbook is closed, and a Personal.xlsb is not saved.

Workaround for Symptom 1

This behavior is the expected behavior. In this scenario, Excel 2007 does not save a Personal.xlsb workbook.

Symptom 2

You record a macro in the Personal Macro Workbook in Excel 2003. When you start Excel 2007, Excel 2007 loads the workbook. If you record a macro in the Personal Macro Workbook, you receive the following message when you exit Excel 2007:

Do you want to save the changes you made to the Personal Macro Workbook? If you click Yes, the macros will be available the next time you start Microsoft Office Excel.

If you click No, Excel 2007 does not save the macro. If you click Yes, Excel 2007 saves the macro in the Personal.xls workbook.

When you start Excel 2007, Excel loads the Personal.xls workbook, and the macros from Excel 2003 and Excel 2007 are available.

When you start Excel 2003, you receive the following message:

This file is not in a recognized format.

• If you know the file is from another program which is incompatible with Microsoft Office Excel, click Cancel, then open this file in its original application. If you want to open the file later in Microsoft Office Excel, save it in a format that is compatible, such as text format.
  
• If you suspect the file is damaged, click Help for more information about solving the problem.
  
• If you still want to see what text is contained in the file, click OK. Then click Finish in the Text Import Wizard.

If you click Cancel, Excel 2003 does not load the workbook. If you click OK, Excel loads the workbook, but the workbook is filled with unreadable characters.

Workaround for Symptom 2

To work around this behavior, rename the Personal.xls workbook to Personal.xlsb. When you start Excel 2007, Excel loads the workbook, and the macros are available.

When you start Excel 2003, you receive the following message, Excel loads the workbook, and the macros are available:

File conversion in progress

Symptom 3

You record a macro in the Personal.xlsb workbook in Excel 2007. When you start Excel 2003, you receive the following message, Excel loads the workbook, and then the macro is available:

File conversion in progress

If you record a macro in the Personal Macro Workbook, you receive the following message when you exit Excel 2003:

Do you want to save the changes you made to the Personal Macro Workbook? If you click Yes, the macros will be available the next time you start Microsoft Office Excel.

If you click No, Excel 2003 does not save the macro. If you click Yes, Excel 2003 saves the macro in the Personal.xls workbook.

When you start Excel 2007, Excel loads the Personal.xls workbook and the Personal.xlsb workbook. Additionally, the macros from Excel 2003 and from Excel 2007 are available.

When you start Excel 2003, Excel loads the Personal.xls workbook and the Personal.xlsb workbook. You receive the following message, and the macros from Excel 2003 and Excel 2007 are available:

File conversion in progress

Workaround for Symptom 3

This behavior is the expected behavior in this scenario

MORE INFORMATION

The Personal Macro Workbook is saved in the following folder as a hidden file:

C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART

When you record a custom macro in Excel 2003, the macro is saved in the Personal Macro Workbook.

When you record a custom macro in Excel 2007, the macro is saved in the Personal Macro Workbook.

Additional query words: excel2007 excel2k7 excel12 xl2007 xl2k7 xl12 excel2003 excel2k3 excel11 xl2003 xl2k3 xl11

Keywords: kbinfo kbtshoot kbmacro kbprb kbstartprogram kbexpertisebeginner KB930480

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