Phantom Auto_Open (Excel 2000 SP-1)

Topic

New Reply

I was doing a search from Explorer for workbooks that contained Auto_Open code in them. I found a few files that came up that did NOT have any Auto_Open code in them. I tried Code Cleaner but that did not get rid of the phantom Auto_open.

I finally just copied the code to a new workbook, deleted the old one and then they did not show up on the search.

Must be some kind of throw-back to an earlier version of Excel (maybe 4.0?) that must have embedded Auto_Open somewhere hidden?

Anyone else seen this?

Reply | Quote

Replies

Did you look for thisWorkbook_Open in the thisWorkbook object?

Steve

Reply | Quote

No. I was just using the search tool search for “Containing text” and entering “Auto_Open”. It found files that did have that text as well as the ones I described where there was no “Auto_Open” anywhere.

Reply | Quote

No, you did not look or No there was none?
thisWorkbook_open event IS a macro that automatically runs when the workbook opens.

There could also be macros for various worksheets when they activate or a host of other events.

Steve

Reply | Quote

It dosen’t matter if there was a Workbook_Open macro or not. I wasn’t searching for that text, just “Auto_Open” text.

Reply | Quote

I guess I am confused.

I understood your question to be that you were looking for reasons for a file to have “auto-open code” but NO code that says specifically “Auto_Open” (“phantom auto-opens”). Workbook events would do this.

Steve

Reply | Quote

I guess I’m not clearly stating what I did. Do the following:

Explore > View > Explorer Bar > Search > Contains text: (enter Auto_Open), pick a directory with Excel files in it. Do the search.

It returns to me some files that do not contain “Auto_Open”

Reply | Quote

I’m think that this may be what is happening. Excel files may contain areas that are not initilized. For example, if you delete a macro from a workbook, the space in the file where the macro was stored may still contain some of the text from the macro. When you use Explorer to search for text in the file, it just searches through the physical file without using the file structure of the application. I think that Explorer may be finding the text in an area of the file that Excel does not use.

Reply | Quote

Yup! That’s what I’m thinking also. Sure adds to the confusion when you try to find something.

Reply | Quote