All Macros Stopped Working

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I am suddenly getting an error message when I try to run ANY of my macros:

“A document with the name Personal.xls is already open. You cannot open 2 documents with the same name, even if the documents are in different folders. To open the second document, either close the document that’s currently open, or rename one of the documents.”

The problem is, I have just opened Excel and don’t have 2 Personal.xls open?

Any ideas?

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Hi Sherry,

It is possible that Excel is trying to load 2 separate files called personal.xls. The best thing to do is to search for personal.xls using Start, Find, Files or Folders, and see if you can locate more than one file. If so you should rename them all – you will probably be prevented from renaming the one that is loaded in Excel (assuming that Excel is open). You can then load them and check to see if they contain any macros that are not in the file that is loaded. If they do just copy the macros to the existing file and close and delete.

Andrew C

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Hi Andrew,
I did as you said and there is only one copy of personal.xls on my system. I moved it out of xlstart and then opened Excel and recorded a macro in a clean version of personal.xls. Then I replaced the new version with the old version – with the same results!?

I don’t have a clue of what to do next – do you?

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Just a shot in the dark:
If you go to Tools>Options>General,
is there anything listed in “Alternate startup file location:”?

Mark

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No, BUT I just realized something! Yesterday the IT dept installed Win98 on my PC. AND they divided my hard drive into C, D, and E. The location of personal.xls has moved from C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOfficeXlstart to E:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOfficeXlstart.

So, could Excel be confused even though there is only one personal.xls?

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Whenn you did a search for persoanl.xls, did you search all drives, i.e. C, D and E. Is it possible that a copy was left on Drive C

Andrew

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Yes, I searched all local drives and it only found one copy – the one on the E drive.

And I just tried creating a folder in C:Program FilesMicrosoft OfficeOfficeXlstart – and putting personal.xls there. That didn’t work either.

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How are you executing the macros? From the list under Tools/Macros, or from a button on a sheet or form or from a menu?

I am guessing that your Personal.xls was moved to drive E: and is now being automatically opened from there when you start Excel. If you are running the macro from a button or menu, then the button or menu might have a path to the macro that is pointing at the old location. That would cause Excel to think it needs to open Personal.xls from the C: drive, which would cause the error even if the file on the C: drive does not exist.

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You are absolutely correct! When I ran them from the Tools/Macro list they worked just fine. It was the buttons that didn’t work. I reassigned the macros and they now work fine!

Thanks Andrew, Mark and Legare .

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