[boonedogg]

We recently upgraded the last of our Office 2000 users to Office 2003. The client has been experiencing occasional Excel crashes which in itself is not the problem.

The problem we are experiencing is that while the user has the autosave function in Excel enabled with a 10 minute interval indicated. When Excel crashes the Autorecovery function is referencing files that are days old as what is available for recovery when the files were all open and active in the Excel instance that just crashed.

This "could" very well be an education or configuration issue .. so any input is appreciated.

Additionally the client has multiple instances of Excel running.

[Zack Barresse]

Hi there, welcome to the board!

One problem is that Excel is a single instance application, which makes it different from other Office applications. Although it may look like a multiple instance application, it is not (even though you can open multiple instances, you shouldn't). Now, the other thing to mention, is that AutoRecover, is not the same as AutoRecoverMyAss, don't ever get the two confused. There are some nice add-ins for performing backups of files in progress. Jan Karel Pieterse wrote one called Autosafe (look here for his downloads page) which works very well.

With multiple instances running (note these do differ from multiple files/workbooks being open in a single instance) I am not sure how AutoRecover will react to the files. But with single-instances of Excel, the file starts a timer and it will save a temporary file to the temporary folder (or the folder you specify) at the set intervals. If the system crashes, or has a recognized crash, the files will be shown in the post-crash boot of the application. If it is not showing, it is either not saving the file, the file(s) are getting closed properly, or there is no save information for that file. In any case, I'd recommend keeping only one instance of the application open (remembering still that you can open multiple files, just don't keep opening the application, i.e. excel.exe) and setting your timer to a lower number of minutes. Also I'd recommend to get the Autosafe add-in. It's really worth it, especially if you are having crashes (not sure why though).

HTH

[Zack Barresse]

Hi there, welcome to the board!

One problem is that Excel is a single instance application, which makes it different from other Office applications. Although it may look like a multiple instance application, it is not (even though you can open multiple instances, you shouldn't). Now, the other thing to mention, is that AutoRecover, is not the same as AutoRecoverMyAss, don't ever get the two confused. There are some nice add-ins for performing backups of files in progress. Jan Karel Pieterse wrote one called Autosafe (look here for his downloads page) which works very well.

With multiple instances running (note these do differ from multiple files/workbooks being open in a single instance) I am not sure how AutoRecover will react to the files. But with single-instances of Excel, the file starts a timer and it will save a temporary file to the temporary folder (or the folder you specify) at the set intervals. If the system crashes, or has a recognized crash, the files will be shown in the post-crash boot of the application. If it is not showing, it is either not saving the file, the file(s) are getting closed properly, or there is no save information for that file. In any case, I'd recommend keeping only one instance of the application open (remembering still that you can open multiple files, just don't keep opening the application, i.e. excel.exe) and setting your timer to a lower number of minutes. Also I'd recommend to get the Autosafe add-in. It's really worth it, especially if you are having crashes (not sure why though).

HTH

[Zack Barresse]

Hi there, welcome to the board!

One problem is that Excel is a single instance application, which makes it different from other Office applications. Although it may look like a multiple instance application, it is not (even though you can open multiple instances, you shouldn't). Now, the other thing to mention, is that AutoRecover, is not the same as AutoRecoverMyAss, don't ever get the two confused. There are some nice add-ins for performing backups of files in progress. Jan Karel Pieterse wrote one called Autosafe (look here for his downloads page) which works very well.

With multiple instances running (note these do differ from multiple files/workbooks being open in a single instance) I am not sure how AutoRecover will react to the files. But with single-instances of Excel, the file starts a timer and it will save a temporary file to the temporary folder (or the folder you specify) at the set intervals. If the system crashes, or has a recognized crash, the files will be shown in the post-crash boot of the application. If it is not showing, it is either not saving the file, the file(s) are getting closed properly, or there is no save information for that file. In any case, I'd recommend keeping only one instance of the application open (remembering still that you can open multiple files, just don't keep opening the application, i.e. excel.exe) and setting your timer to a lower number of minutes. Also I'd recommend to get the Autosafe add-in. It's really worth it, especially if you are having crashes (not sure why though).

HTH