That was it Dave - sort of. I do have TweakUI installed, but haven't
touched it in a year probably. And it's apparently an older version than
the Microsoft Support document you linked references because the relevant
box was somewhere totally different with a different name.

None-the-less, checking the box did indeed fix Excel. Evidently Excel97
just ignored that setting, but 2003 sat up and paid attention to it.

Thanks for your help.

Bill
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Dave Peterson" wrote in message
...
And maybe...

OFFXP: "Most Recently Used" List Missing from File Menu and "Recently Used
File List" Option Unavailable (Q284896)
http://support.microsoft.com/default...;EN-US;q284896

Any chance you just turned on TweakUI?

This was written for xl2002, but maybe....

Bill Martin wrote:

That would have worked for me in '97 Michael. With 2003 though the
option
is not available to me. The box you're supposed to check for "Recently
used
file list:" is grayed out as is the box you'd use to adjust the number of
entries. I'm presuming that somewhere there is some bit of configuration
that has grayed out this option. I don't know where though. I just
installed Office 2003 out of the box with whatever defaults it chose to
make.

Bill
-------------------------------------

"Michael" wrote in message
...
Hi Bill. Have you tried going to Tools - Options - General Tab and
changing
the number of most recently used files from 4 to 10?
--
Sincerely, Michael Colvin


"Bill Martin" wrote:

Finally I broke down and upgraded to Excel 2003 from Excel97. Various
small
differences exist that I'm trying to come to terms with.
Specifically,
in
'97 when I clicked on "File", the bottom of the menu would have the
last
10
files that I had used where I could click one to open it again.

Does 2003 have this feature buried in it's configuration somewhere?
It
seems that I have to click FileOpen and mouse through all my files to
get
to the one that I want. I don't see the configuration control for
this
where it was with '97.

Also, how does one get to the simple Excel Help file now? When I
click
on
it and enter a search term it gives me a zillion things from the web
which I
didn't ask for - what I asked for was the local Excel Help file. I'd
like
to start there with problems before doing a wider search of the
Microsoft's
web site for more esoteric links.

Thanks.

Bill




--

Dave Peterson