XL 2003 / IE 6.00.2900 - Macro menu unavailable

[Xhork]

Hello,

I face a strange issue.
Here is the situation.

- An in-house web application has an "export to CSV" function. Works fine.
- When produced CSV file is open in Internet Explorer.
- User profile host an Excel spreadsheet in %USERPROFILE%\Application
Data\Microsoft\Excel\XLSTART so that its functions are automatically
available every time excel starts (but you've already guessed it).
- So CSV file opens in IE and user calld the "Tools -> Macro" standard excel
menu to call the procedure.

My issue is the following :
- On some PC standard excel menu "Tools -> Macro" is available.
- On some others this menu is greyed, then available.


I have searched for hours and hours, even with Sysinternals tools, to list
files/registry operations that occurs while CSV file opens but without
success. By the way there are too many events when XL loads which makes
events difficult to analyse :-(.

I confirm that there are no gap between user/computer policies (either local
or domain GPO).

Thanks in advance to anyone that could help me.

Best regards,

David

 

[Bill Renaud]

What happens if your user starts up Excel separately, then attempts to open
the previously exported CSV file in Excel, instead of trying to open it in
IE? This is what I normally do when opening a CSV file exported from a web
application, just to make sure that I have full Excel functionality
available (and also that my toolbars are available).

Maybe your custom functions need to be saved in an add-in and loaded that
way, rather than relying on the XLSTART folder. I know an Excel file other
than "Book.XLS" or "Sheet.XLS" in the XLSTART folder will open
automatically when you start up Excel, but maybe this isn't happening when
Excel is run inside IE. Normally, I only use the XLSTART folder to save
"Book.XLS" or "Sheet.XLS", which provide an autotemplate (master template)
for all created workbooks.

Maybe the "Alternate startup file location" field in the Tools|Options
dialog box (General tab) will work better than putting auto-loaded files in
the XLSTART folder.

Just some ideas to try.

 

[Xhork]

Hello Bill,

I confirm that the Excel file automatically starts even if launched through
IE.

David

 

[Bill Renaud]

<<I confirm that the Excel file automatically starts even if launched
through IE.>>

Assuming that the "export to CSV" function in your in-house web application
actually saves the CSV file to disk, then you may have an incorrect setup
in Explorer (regular file Explorer, not IE).

You might try this:

1. Start up (file) Explorer.
2. Click on Tools|Options.
3. Click on the "File Types" tab.
4. Scroll down the list to the CSV extension.
5. If it says that it opens with IE, then I would try changing it to
"Microsoft Excel Comma Separated Values File" that opens with Microsoft
Excel for Windows. The parameters for the Open and Print actions should be
similar to those of a regular XLS file.