Excel 2000 won't remember changes to Toolbars

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i1Patrick

I've tried deleting/renaming both my XLB and my PIP files, but my changes
still won't save if I restart. Any suggestions?
 
D

Dave Peterson

I think I would try this:

close excel
Use windows start button|search for *.xlb
make a note of all the *.xlb's you find.

Open excel and make a minor change to a toolbar (create a new one should be
sufficient).
Close excel (to give it a chance to save the current *.xlb changes)

Use windows start button|search for *.xlb
Do you see a *.xlb with that change in it--last modified date.

If yes, then delete all the others (or rename them to *.xlbOLD) and restart
excel.

Is that test toolbar still there? If yes, you've found the real home for your
*.xlb file. (Make a few more changes and see if those get saved correctly
before you do all your changes.)

After you do all your changes, close excel and copy that good *.xlb to a nice
safe backup location. If you ever lose this ability, then you can just copy the
backup into the real location. (Much easier than recreating.)

===
One the other hand, if you didn't see a *.xlb that was modified for your change,
maybe it's not excel's fault. There have been posts where users complain that
their IT staff didn't give them access to write files to their own drives.

If that's the case, I'd complain to my IT department.
 
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i1Patrick

Thanks for responding, Dave.

I've already isolated my functional XLB file such that I now only have one
with the name "excel.xlb" in play, so I at least know how to work with that
one file.

Here's an extra detail: if I open the "excel.xlb" file itself and make a
minor toolbar change, the problem appears to go away. My change is still
there after I close Excel and restart it as long as I start Excel by
double-clicking the "excel.xlb" file.

However, if (after minor change) I restart Excel via the "excel.EXE" file
(via shortcut in Start menu, etc.), as Excel starts up, I can watch the minor
toolbar change I just made disappear and go back to my other buttons. Weird!

Another item that may be important to note is that at one point in the past
I was able to make normal changes to my menus, but I must have fouled up
something because that ability went away, leaving me where I am now. So now
whenever I lose my minor toolbar changes, it all goes back to my last edited,
working config (not to Excel's default toolbars).

Could it be that my "Excel.EXE" file is deleting then re-making my
"excel.xlb" file?

I'd appreciate any additional advice. Thanks!

Patrick

_____________________________________________
 
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i1Patrick

ANOTHER UPDATE: Yes, it DOES seem that when I start Excel via the EXE file,
my old "excel.xlb" file gets deleted and recreated. I just tried the
previous experiment, but waited a couple minutes after modifying the XLB
file's toolbars. Sure enough, when I restarted Excel via the EXE file, it
overwrote my XLB file which contained my changed toolbar.

Any suggestions???????
 
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Dave Peterson

You say you only have one *.xlb file, but one way I could duplicate your
situation was to have a *.xlb in my XLStart folder (or "Alternate Startup File
location" folder.

I could see the toolbar I wanted flash, but then excel would open the XLStart
version of the *.xlb file and supersede my wanted toolbar.

You may want to look for *.xlb (hidden folders and hidden files), too.

Or look for XLStart and search through those folders.

Or look in:
Tools|options|general tab
"at startup, open all files in:" <xl2002+ wording>
"Alternate Startup File location" <before xl2002 wording>
 
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