Windows Vista and Excel 2000 -- incompatibility?

[Lindsay Graham]

I asked about this issue some 6 weeks ago on two of these newsgroups, and
got a lot of advice, but no solution. Having been away for a month, I'm now
back trying to resolve what is still a very annoying problem, and I hope
that someone out there can help me.

I'm using Excel 2000 on a Vista desktop and on an XP laptop. When using
Vista, cell formatting will not work any more. For example, if I try to
apply date or custom date formatting to a cell containing '8/6/08', the cell
is not formatted as a date. The problem exists even if Excel is opened in
Safe mode, exists in both new and existing Excel files, and exists
regardless of whether the format is applied before or after the date is
entered. BUT if one of the same files is opened using the XP computer, date
formatting works as usual.

I've searched newsgroups and the web generally, and can find no other
examples of this problem. Is this an incompatibility issue between Vista
and Excel 2000? If so, does anyone know of a workaround? Can anyone help
with any other suggestions?

 

[DL]

Only Office components from Office 2003 & later are fully compatible with
Vista, that being said its generally Outlook that has most issues, I'v not
seen any mention of excell issues, but then you might get more info by
posting direct to an Excel group.

 

[macropod]

Hi Lindsay,

I'm running Office 2000 (excluding Outlook) on Vista Home Premium and have no problems with any aspect of Excel - including cell
formatting.

Have you tried running Excel's 'Detect and Repair' facility (see under Help)?
Is your copy of Excel 2000 fully patched (under Help|About, it should report the version as 9.0.8950 SP-3)?

 

[HLS]

It was mentioned on here, I believe, some time ago tht Excel 2000 WILL run
correctly
under, given that all traces of newer approval Office software are removed.
I also seem
to remember that removing this "approval" software is not always an easy
task.

If I am wrong, surely someone will correct me ;>)

My solution is to go back to my old machine and run XP or 2000 version of
Windows.
I run Linux on my laptop, and am very happy with it.

My wife can have this Vista desktop for email. It should be good enough for
that.

 

[Gord Dibben]

Perhaps the Windows Regional options "short date" settings are reversed on
the two OS and Excel doesn't recognize dates in that format on the Vista
system?


Gord Dibben MS Excel MVP

 

[Webster]

I use Office '97 (less Outlook) on my Vista Home Premium with no problem.
I have created many spreadsheets with Excel.

BTW, what has Linux got to do with Excel?

 

[Lindsay Graham]

Thanks, "macropod" -- these are two suggestions that have not been made (or
tried by me) before.

I tried several times to run Excel's 'Detect and Repair' facility. Most
times, I got an error message "Windows Installer: This installation package
could not be opened. Verify that the package exists and that you can access
it, or contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows
Installer program." I checked for Windows Installer and find that I have
Windows Installer Unicode Version 4.0.6000.16386 and also Windows Live
Installer version 12.0.1471.1025. Are either of these what Excel says it
could not open?

On one occasion, however, the error message did not appear, the installation
disk was requested, and after chugging away for some time, Excel simply said
Setup was completed successfully. Is that what I should have expected?

I have 3 networked computers (Vista desktop, XP desktop and XP laptop) and
all have Office 2000. I successfully updated both XP machines to Office
2000 SP3 (using the installation disks), but the update failed on the Vista
computer "The expected version of the product was not found on your system."
What does this mean and how can I instal SP3?

--
Lindsay Graham
Canberra, Australia
---------------------------------------------
Please reply only to the list/newsgroup so that all may benefit.

Hi Lindsay,

I'm running Office 2000 (excluding Outlook) on Vista Home Premium and have
no problems with any aspect of Excel - including cell formatting.

Have you tried running Excel's 'Detect and Repair' facility (see under
Help)?
Is your copy of Excel 2000 fully patched (under Help|About, it should
report the version as 9.0.8950 SP-3)?

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]

I asked about this issue some 6 weeks ago on two of these newsgroups, and
got a lot of advice, but no solution. Having been away for a month, I'm
now back trying to resolve what is still a very annoying problem, and I
hope that someone out there can help me.

I'm using Excel 2000 on a Vista desktop and on an XP laptop. When using
Vista, cell formatting will not work any more. For example, if I try to
apply date or custom date formatting to a cell containing '8/6/08', the
cell is not formatted as a date. The problem exists even if Excel is
opened in Safe mode, exists in both new and existing Excel files, and
exists regardless of whether the format is applied before or after the
date is entered. BUT if one of the same files is opened using the XP
computer, date formatting works as usual.

I've searched newsgroups and the web generally, and can find no other
examples of this problem. Is this an incompatibility issue between Vista
and Excel 2000? If so, does anyone know of a workaround? Can anyone
help with any other suggestions?

 

[Lindsay Graham]

Thanks, "HLS". No newer Office software has been installed on this
computer. What do you mean by "approval" software?

I'd love to give Vista away (I'd almost be prepared to pay someone to take
it away <g>), but that's not an option on this computer, as it came with
Vista pre-installed.

 

[Lindsay Graham]

Thanks for the thought, Gord, but all 3 computers have exactly the same
short date format in Regional Options.

 

[macropod]

Hi Lindsay,

Running Detect & Repair does not necessarily result in any 'feedback' messages. The Detect & Repair process runs the Windows
Installer (msiexec.exe), which tries to load the data1.msi file. I believe the error messages were the result of that file not being
found or being corrupted. In that case, the Windows Installer should prompt you to insert the installation CD. Why it eventually
worked anyway, I don't know - did you perhaps have an Office 2000 CD in the drive at that stage?

WRT the updates, did you install Office 2000 SR1, then SP2 followed by SP3? From memory, SP2 required SR1 to be installed beforehand
and SP3 required SP2 to be installed beforehand.

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]

Thanks, "macropod" -- these are two suggestions that have not been made (or tried by me) before.

I tried several times to run Excel's 'Detect and Repair' facility. Most times, I got an error message "Windows Installer: This
installation package could not be opened. Verify that the package exists and that you can access it, or contact the application
vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer program." I checked for Windows Installer and find that I have Windows
Installer Unicode Version 4.0.6000.16386 and also Windows Live Installer version 12.0.1471.1025. Are either of these what Excel
says it could not open?

On one occasion, however, the error message did not appear, the installation disk was requested, and after chugging away for some
time, Excel simply said Setup was completed successfully. Is that what I should have expected?

I have 3 networked computers (Vista desktop, XP desktop and XP laptop) and all have Office 2000. I successfully updated both XP
machines to Office 2000 SP3 (using the installation disks), but the update failed on the Vista computer "The expected version of
the product was not found on your system." What does this mean and how can I instal SP3?

--
Lindsay Graham
Canberra, Australia
---------------------------------------------
Please reply only to the list/newsgroup so that all may benefit.

Hi Lindsay,

I'm running Office 2000 (excluding Outlook) on Vista Home Premium and have no problems with any aspect of Excel - including cell
formatting.

Have you tried running Excel's 'Detect and Repair' facility (see under Help)?
Is your copy of Excel 2000 fully patched (under Help|About, it should report the version as 9.0.8950 SP-3)?

--
Cheers
macropod
[MVP - Microsoft Word]

I asked about this issue some 6 weeks ago on two of these newsgroups, and got a lot of advice, but no solution. Having been away
for a month, I'm now back trying to resolve what is still a very annoying problem, and I hope that someone out there can help me.

I'm using Excel 2000 on a Vista desktop and on an XP laptop. When using Vista, cell formatting will not work any more. For
example, if I try to apply date or custom date formatting to a cell containing '8/6/08', the cell is not formatted as a date.
The problem exists even if Excel is opened in Safe mode, exists in both new and existing Excel files, and exists regardless of
whether the format is applied before or after the date is entered. BUT if one of the same files is opened using the XP
computer, date formatting works as usual.

I've searched newsgroups and the web generally, and can find no other examples of this problem. Is this an incompatibility
issue between Vista and Excel 2000? If so, does anyone know of a workaround? Can anyone help with any other suggestions?

 

[DL]

Office trial version = 'approval'

Thanks, "HLS". No newer Office software has been installed on this
computer. What do you mean by "approval" software?

I'd love to give Vista away (I'd almost be prepared to pay someone to take
it away <g>), but that's not an option on this computer, as it came with
Vista pre-installed.