My opinion is that excel is playing catchup with word. But lots of people
thought the way the SDI was implemented in MSWord is kind of ugly (I do).

I'd rather have it look more like excel--just one set of toolbars when I've
arranged my open windows.



Chevy wrote:

Gord,

Well, you've got me pointed in the right direction at least.Your suggestion
does indeed work. But it doesn't work the way Word does.

If no instances of Excel are running, the FIRST time you double-click an
.xls file, Excel will start but it will not open the file. And
double-clicking any additional .xls files just runs additional instances of
Excel without opening the files.

It seems to me the Word programming group beat the Excel group when it comes
to properly implementing SDI and MDI. From my perspective, Word behaves as I
would expect it to; Excel does not. Running multiple processes is, of
course, a needless resource hog.

In your opinion, is Excel's behavior a bug? If so how does one report it?

"Gord Dibben" gorddibbATshawDOTca wrote in message
...
Chevy

Open Excel and a workbook.

Go to ToolsOptionsGeneral and put a checkmark in "Ignore other
applications".

Open Windows Explorer and d-click on an *.xls file.

A new instance of Excel will open.

Not just a new Window, a new instance of Excel.

Gord Dibben Excel MVP

On Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:39:58 GMT, "Chevy" wrote:

A couple of points:

In Word, click Tools - Options - View tab. Uncheck "Windows in Taskbar."
Now, Word works just like Excel; that is, double-clicking two .doc files
in
succession opens them in ONE Word instance.
Since both Word and Excel have the "Windows in Taskbar" option, one would
think that Word and Excel would behave alike in this regard.
I can't believe this is by design.

In your explanation of Excel, your reference to "window" illustrates MDI
or
Multiple Document Interface; that is, it opens one window of itself and
each
file is in its own "child" window.

Word (with "Windows in Taskbar" checked) illustrates SDI or Single
Document
Interface; that is, it opens multiple windows of itself, each containing a
separate file.

If you start Excel by repeatedly clicking Start - Programs - Microsoft
Office - Excel, it will open multiple windows of itself, each in its own
process as evidenced in Task Manager (note that when Word opens multiple
windows of itself, they all exist in a single process).

The bottom line is that Excel & Word do not work the same way with regard
to
SDI, MDI, and the "Windows in Taskbar" option. Again, it seems to me that
they should. It also seems to me that there should be a way to make Excel
behave like Word with respect to double-clicking multiple .xls files
within
Explorer.






wrote in message
...
hi,
excel does have each file in it own window.
on the xl toolbar goto windowarangepick from list.
windownew window opens a second window of the same file.
word cannot open two files at once so when you open two
file word open a second session. not just the file. excel
only open once and keeps all the windows within 1 open
excel session.
so to answer your question
1. not a bug
2. no
-----Original Message-----
SYSTEM STATUS:

a.. Operating System: Windows XP Service Pack 2
b.. Word: 2002 (10.6612.6626) Service Pack 3
c.. Excel: 2002 (10.6612.6626) Service Pack 3
d.. Word: Tools - Options - ViewTab -
Windows in Taskbar IS
checked.
e.. Excel: Tools - Options - ViewTab -
Windows in Taskbar IS
checked.
a.. The Taskbar Properties has "Group similar taskbar
buttons" UNCHECKED


TEST 1:

a.. Start Windows Explorer.
b.. Navigate to a folder which contains at least two
Word files and two
Excel files.
c.. Double-click one Word file.
d.. Double-click a second Word file.
e.. Each Word document opens in its own Window.
f.. Each Word document has its own icon on the taskbar.
g.. The Task Manager Processes tab reports only one
instance of WINWORD is
running.


TEST2:

a.. Double-click one Excel file.
b.. Double-click a second Excel file.
c.. Both Excel documents open in the same Window.
d.. Each Excel document has its own icon on the taskbar.
e.. The Task Manager Processes tab reports only one
instance of EXCEL is
running.


NOTES:

a.. Word operates the way I want it to.
b.. Excel does not.
c.. I want Excel to open each document in a separate
window.
a.. Excel has a key named ShowWindowsInTaskbar
(REG_DWORD) 0x000000001 (1)
located in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0
\Excel\Options.
b.. The value of this key will change to 0 if Tools -
Options -
ViewTab -Windows in Taskbar is unchecked.
c.. Word does NOT have a similar registry key in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\10 .0
\Word\Options.


QUESTION:

a.. Is the difference in operation between Word and
Excel a bug?
b.. Is it possible to make Excel open documents that
same way Word does?


.




--

Dave Peterson