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MS Office Forum / Excel / New Users / October 2007Reading Vista files from XP
We have just started receiving Excel files from others that were created using a MS Vista version of Excel. The file extension is XLS. When we try to open the files using our XP version of Excel, the program crashes. I am wondering what can be done so that Excel files can be exchanged between the 2 operating systems? Clearly this must be a well known problem, but I have had no success stumbling on the answer. Thanks..................Dave The operating systems have nothing to do with the files. The files are created by Excel. There is no MS Vista version of Excel. There are several versions of Excel, Excel 95, 97, 2000, 2002 (XP), 2003 and 2007. Excel 2007 has its own file format, .xlsx but can create files compatible with previous versions of Excel, i.e. .xls. The version of Excel that is running has nothing to do with the operating system. Your problem lies elsewhere, not with the operating systems. Tyro > We have just started receiving Excel files from others that were created > using a MS Vista version of Excel. The file extension is XLS. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Thanks..................Dave Visit MS site and download the Compatibility utility that lets XL2003 read XL2007 files https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=941b3470-3ae9-4aee-8f4 3-c6bb74cd1466&displaylang=en best wishes  SignatureBernard V Liengme Microsoft Excel MVP www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme remove caps from email > We have just started receiving Excel files from others that were created > using a MS Vista version of Excel. The file extension is XLS. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > > Thanks..................Dave Bernard --- Thank you for your response. I have done what you suggested, and as I suspected, it added the 2007 file formats to Excel, Word and PowerPoint. That is very helpful, and is exactly the solution I was looking for in my original posting. What it didn't do was solve our problem - which I now understand to be somewhat different than a simple file conversion problem. Here is what has happened. We have a customer who has sent us an EMail with 3 attachments, 2 MS Word documents and 1 Excel file. We are running MS Office 2002 SP3. Our customer is running Vista, so I assume they are running Office 2007 (??). The files we were sent had the familiar file extensions - XLS and DOC (not xlsx). When we go to open the files (directly from the Email attachment), the correct software is automatically started (either Excel or Word), and the document is read in - at least enough for the program to display the data from the file, as the first screen of data is displayed. Then, before there is a chance to do anything (one or two seconds after the file is displayed on the screen), we get the "Microsoft Excel has encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry for the inconvenience." message with the offer to send in an error report. This same crash happens with both Word and Excel. When the originator re-creates the files using the PDF format, they arrive fine and we can view them. Any suggestions? Thanks for your help!....................Dave > Visit MS site and download the Compatibility utility that lets XL2003 read > XL2007 files [quoted text clipped - 13 lines] >> >> Thanks..................Dave Office 2007 has features not present in Office 2003. If you want 100% compatibility, your customer should not use those features and save the files to be sent to you in Office 2003 formats. Otherwise you'll have to get Office 2007. Office files saved as, or converted to, PDF files are not Office files and have nothing to do with Office. They are PDF files for use with programs such as Adobe. Tyro > Bernard --- > [quoted text clipped - 53 lines] >>> >>> Thanks..................Dave Tyro --- Thank you for your response. Yes, I understand what you are saying and agree. What we seem to have here however, is a file that was saved as an XLS file (presumably, a 2002 / 2003 compatible file format), that causes Excel 2002 to crash when the file is opened. Are you saying that the user could be using a 2007 specific feature that would somehow survive into an XLS file and cause Excel 2002 to crash when the file was opened? And, remember, I am having exactly the same problem with 2 MS Word files - Word crashes in exactly the same way when either of the 2 DOC files are opened. .................Dave > Office 2007 has features not present in Office 2003. If you want 100% > compatibility, your customer should not use those features and save the [quoted text clipped - 65 lines] >>>> >>>> Thanks..................Dave Theoretically, Excel 2003 should not "crash", it generally should give an error. Let's say you use an Excel 2007 function and send that back to Excel 2003. In that case Excel 2003 should give a #NAME error as it does not recognize the function name. However, in this imperfect world, anything might happen. In Excel 2007 you can have any number of conditional formats and in Excel 2003, you can have only 3. So I don't know what would happen in that case. I have not played with sending Office 2007 files back to previous versions. I use Office 2007. I have brought my Office 2003 files into Office 2007 with no problems. My custom menus and toolbars are maintained, albeit in slightly different formats. Tyro > Tyro --- > [quoted text clipped - 87 lines] >>>>> >>>>> Thanks..................Dave |
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