Who knows why windows loses those settings?

But one thing I would do is make sure that extensions are visible--either in
windows explorer or in the title bar in excel.

If you don't see the extensions, you can toggle that setting:

Open Windows Explorer
Tools|Folder Options|View tab
Scroll down just a bit and make sure "Hide extensions for known file types" is
not checked.

It should make it easier to know if you're working on a new workbook (based on a
template) or an existing workbook (*.xls).



HannaBlack wrote:
>
> >
> > If you are seeing new workbooks (excel/windows is treating it like a template),
> > then try this:
> >
> > Close Excel and
> > Windows Start Button|Run
> > excel /unregserver
> > then
> > Windows Start Button|Run
> > excel /regserver
> >
> > The /unregserver & /regserver stuff resets the windows registry to excel's
> > factory defaults.
> >
>
> Thanks so much, I reset the registry to factory defaults and it all
> works fine now. Before fixing the problem, I had noticed that any .xls
> files opened...even in Windows Explorer were only a copy with a little
> 1 after the file name. Still not sure how someone rigged excel to do
> that though... but again, tx for the tip!

--

Dave Peterson