OldGrayGary

Hi tony


On the Vista machine, make sure the Excel '97 has all the available updates for it installed, it can help compatibility. (I think the last release for it was called SR-2, with a possible year-2000 patch called SR-2b .. but I can't remember exactly). If you aren't currently running Excel in Compatibility Mode, give that a try as well (right-click its executable, and select a suitable Compatibility Mode). I think it might be asking a lot for two spreadsheets and Mail to be open at the same time . . . for such older software to operate flawlessly. See if things are fine working with one spreadsheet at a time. If yes, you can then experiment to see what combination of other open windows crosses the breaking point.

Also --- check in your EventViewer logs in the Control Panel to see what errors coincide with the unresponsive behavior when saving your Excel work. Check, especially, to see if there is a permissions issue occuring during that time.
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Regarding - Office 2007 & backward compatibility:
The latest versons of Office moved to XML based formats, but if you've Excel 2007, I believe you can still choose to save your work in the Office '97 xls format, for compatibility with the older versions your co-workers would be using.
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I've found that the older versions of Office that I've tested on Vista so far perform quite a few of their functions as well as they ever did. But some functions just don't work. It's really remarkable to me that they work as well as they do, especially Office '97, considering that it was originally written for Windows 95!

Best of luck
. . . Gary