That's what I was afraid of. I'm using Office 2007, and don't remember
having this problem with 2003.

When I tested further, I realized that this problem exists even when an
instance of Excel is not already open. So, whenever I double click on an
Excel file, whether an instance is already open or not, I either get an empty
copy of Excel (when clicking on an item in a folder or on my desktop), or an
empty copy of Excel with the Microsoft Outlook error message: The system
cannot find the file specified (when clicking on an outlook attachment).

--
HTH
Dale

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"Bob I" wrote:

It's been my experience you need to open additional files from the Open
File dialog.

Dale Fye wrote:

About a week ago (8/6/08), I asked how to configure Excel to open multiple
instances. Jim Rech responded, pointing me to the checkbox I needed to check
in the Excel options to enable this. OK, that works fine.

However, if I have Excel open and double click on an Excel file in a folder,
on my desktop, or in an email, it will open Excel, but will not open the
file. I have to go into that new instance of Excel, click the Office - Open
menu item and select the file I want to open.

Is this functionality designed that way, is this a bug, or am I missing
something I don't know about Excel 2007?


I've got a dual monitor setup, and want to configure Excel to allow me to
open a spreadsheet in a new instance, so I can look at two spreadsheets,
simultaneously.

In 2003, there was an option under the Tools menu that allowed me to
ignore other applications (or something like that). I've looked at the Excel
Options in 2007, but have not found this option. Anybody know where to
find that option in 2007?