vista black screen excel 97

tony arnold · 02-04-2008, 11:45 AM

vista screen goes black and shuts down often.
using excel 97. using 2 or more excel spreadsheets at once ( windows mail open as well) , i go to save my excel file and everything goes black.

is there a known problem using old excel software that is causing this?

we are on a network. everyone else is XP. If we have to buy a new excel for vista, will the other excel 97 programs be able to open?

**OldGrayGary** · 02-04-2008, 10:53 PM

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.
_______________

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.
_______________

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

02-04-2008, 11:45 AM	#1 (permalink)
tony arnold Registered User Join Date: Feb 2008 Posts: 1 OS: xp	vista black screen excel 97 vista screen goes black and shuts down often. using excel 97. using 2 or more excel spreadsheets at once ( windows mail open as well) , i go to save my excel file and everything goes black. is there a known problem using old excel software that is causing this? we are on a network. everyone else is XP. If we have to buy a new excel for vista, will the other excel 97 programs be able to open?

02-04-2008, 10:53 PM	#2 (permalink)
OldGrayGary Mentor, Microsoft Support Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Woodland Hills, CA Posts: 2,232 OS: Windows 98se/2000/XP/Vista	Re: vista black screen excel 97 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. _______________ 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. _______________ 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 __________________