NEED MORE MEMORY THAN EXCEL 2003 HAS FOR LARGE COMPLICATED WORKBO.

[Guest]

I WOULD LIKE THE NEXT VERSION OF EXCEL TO HAVE A MORE POWERFUL MEMORY
MANAGER.I CREATE VERY LARGE WORKBOOKS WITH MULTIPLE WORKSHEETS USING
COMPLICATED FORMULAS.WHEN MY WORKBOOK GETS LARGR ENOUGH,I GET"OUT OF MEMORY"
AND OTHER SIMILAR ERROR MESSAGES.EVEN EXCEL 2003 WITH IT'S INCREASED MEMORY
CAPACITY OVER EXCEL 2002 IS NOT ENOUGH TO TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF MY COMPUTERS
MEMORY RESOURCES WITH 3 GIGS OF RAM.I KNOW I'M NOT A TYPICAL USER,BUT
MICROSOFT NEEDS TO CONSIDER IT'S POWER USERS.

 

[Guest]

I Can't help, but share your view. Excel 2002 uses around 220MB of memory
when calculating (512MB available). Upgrade to 2003 (supposed to address 1GB
compared to 160MB) BUT same problem - only 220MB used - I sit and watch half
the memory going unused during long (5-12 minute) calculates - any ideas?

 

[Guest]

I WOULD LIKE THE NEXT VERSION OF EXCEL TO HAVE A MORE POWERFUL MEMORY
MANAGER.I CREATE VERY LARGE WORKBOOKS WITH MULTIPLE WORKSHEETS USING
COMPLICATED FORMULAS.WHEN MY WORKBOOK GETS LARGR ENOUGH,I GET"OUT OF MEMORY"
AND OTHER SIMILAR ERROR MESSAGES.EVEN EXCEL 2003 WITH IT'S INCREASED MEMORY
CAPACITY OVER EXCEL 2002 IS NOT ENOUGH TO TAKE FULL ADVANTAGE OF MY COMPUTERS
MEMORY RESOURCES WITH 3 GIGS OF RAM.I KNOW I'M NOT A TYPICAL USER,BUT
MICROSOFT NEEDS TO CONSIDER IT'S POWER USERS.

I don't consider myself a 'power user' but I come across the same/similar
limitations of Excel and find that there are no or very few answers to how to
avoid. Internet searches do not come up with much help including from
Microsoft who seem very quiet on the subject. I have a post on this forum
regarding 'funnies' happening to graph's sizes and 'Out of Memory' messages
on saving, which to the best of my knowledge is an Excel limitation (memory
or otherwise).

OK I'm still using version 97 and I know it's supposedly not supported but,
COME ON MICROSOFT I've tried on vers 2003 and get the same results, so give
us an answer to the issues or at worst provide some workaround! PC memory
does not seem to be the issue according to returns from memory functions.

My organisation has invested a lot of time and money in Microsoft Office
Licences/applications and development of them for users end products. It has
always been an argument that to change to cheaper ( and apparentlyjust as
good/supported and near compatible products would waste that 'investment' and
also involve a cost to convert to new products but I would expect to lose
that argument when the Microsoft product seems to repeatedly fail our needs!

It is not good enough to just come up with yet another version for problems
that have been known about for years but still remain. My organisation just
would not pay out again (rather it would like to treat ill patients!), so
would find non Microsoft alternatives!

 

[Nick Hodge]

Alex

It's an interesting debate, but one that will likely fall on deaf ears here
in the newsgroups. MS likely do not frequent these and those that do are
likely not influencers.

There are several drawbacks in all software and excel is certainly no
exception, but when weighed up, as a package which seems to be used for
everything from photo albums to running the finances of multi million £
organisations, it does a pretty good all round job.

Users should also look at what they use it for and how they use it. Few, for
example, store data in Access or SQL and many use huge numbers of
worksheets, with hundreds of charts, all in the same workbook when a logical
structure across multiple workbooks would be more manageable and perhaps
logical.

Excel performs some amazing feats too when used within it's constraints. I
have one workbook with one pivot table and one pivot chart, it summarises
currently just over 400,000 records with 40 fields each, is just over 70mb
in size and takes less than five minutes to update/refresh and save all
those records. It has run flawlessly, every Monday morning for nearly three
years now.

Just my £0.02!

--
HTH
Nick Hodge
Microsoft MVP - Excel
Southampton, England
(e-mail address removed)