When opening any file in excel, a 1 is added to ther name, and the default is to save a new copy…

Ok... I've searched a lot for this, but it's not an easy question to search for!

When I open any files (xls, or xlsx) in Excel 2007, excel acts like it's a read only file, essentially creating a new file with the name plus a 1 on the end...

Eg. I open NewDoc.xlsx Excel opens it as NewDoc1.xlsx and the save button brings up the save as dialogue in my default folder.

Does anyone know how to set it back to allowing me to open, edit and save a document without having to browse to the original document and save over it!?

My immediate thought was access permissions, but the file is in a network folder with my user given Full Control, I also tried creating a new file in that folder, and also on my local machine just in case - same result. To make it even stranger, if I browse to the original file using the save as dialogue, it will let me save over the original, without any further prompts.

9 Answers

I seem to have resolved this by running the Repair portion of the Office 2k7 setup installation option

(For future reference, this is accessed via Add/Remove programs in the control panel and clicking 'Change' for MS Office 2007, and then selecting Repair)

Chris

Chris, that's the behavior I'd expect when opening an Excel template file. I see at this link that registering and unregistering Excel solved a similar problem for somebody:

I solved the problem by changing the Read & Write permissions in the Get Info screen to Read only, then back to Read & Write. tlc

The only thing that worked for me was to change the extention to .xls (save as - pick .xls from the drop-down list)

Make INACTIVE suspicious COM Add-Ins one by one it will solve your PROBLEM!

MINE :

After MUCH searching and experimentation: the answer turned out to be pretty simple. Each extension (e.g. xlsx) is associated with a "file type", in this case the file type name being "Excel.Sheet.12", .12 being the version number of Excel 16. When you double click or hit enter on an .xlsx file in a file manager like Explorer, it sends a DDE message to Excel 16 to take an action with that file. Actions are New, Open, Edit, Print, etc. If there are more then one action assigned to that file type, one of them is usually (but not necessarily) made the default action. If in Explorer you right click the file, the context menu will list the possible actions, and the default one will be bolded. Now, if the default action is incorrectly set to the New action, Excel will create a new file based on that one (as it does with a template file), and will name it with an extra "1" in the name. If this is happening to you, look at the context menu for the .xlsx file: if the default is New, select the Open action instead, and your file will, well, Open.

The reason you could still drag and drop or use File Open in Excel and be able to open that file is that by going directly into Excel you are bypassing the DDE talk between the file manager and Excel.

So how to change the default action? Of course it is a registry setting, but it's easier to use NirSoft's FileTypesMan utility to manage the file types (). If you are not familiar with the concepts it is a little confusing, but once that utility is running, with Excel closed, locate the .xlsx extension, select it, and look at the lower pane. One (only one) of the actions is the Default. Double click on the Open action line, check the little Default box, close the dialogue box, and close the utility. Now in your file manager double click the .xlsx file you want. Bingo!

You have multiple windows of the same workbook open so you can work in multiple areas. Control W will close the extra window. Go to the workbook you want to close and press Control W.

Save the file again. On opening the newly saved fiel if it asked. Do you want to keep the document trusted? say no. This will solve the issue. and also tick the box "never ask question again"

I have discovered the solution. This is because of the file type you have chosen. You must select the File type as "Microsoft Excel Macro-Enabled Template". Just change the file type from "Microsoft Excel Macro-Enabled Template" to "Microsoft Excel Macro-Enabled Worksheet". That will solve the problem.