I'm still using DBase4 program. Recently I upgraded Excel 2000 to Excel
2007. When I open a .DBF file using Excel, the date column is not converted
correctly. DBF file stores date as mm/dd/yyyy (eg. 01/11/2008). In Excel
date column, some of the cells are shown as dd/mmm/yyyy (value is
01/Nov/2008) and some cells indicate an error (value is 20080125). The error
message is 'The number in this cell is formatted as text or preceded by an
apostrophe.' I checked in format cells, the category is General and there is
no apostrophe shown in formula bar too. My system short date format is set
as dd-MMM-yy. When I changed system short date format to mm/dd/yy, the date
cells is shown correctly.

Excel 2000 was able to convert these correctly which is 11/01/2008 as well
as 25/01/2008 and using system short date format dd-MMM-yy.

My financial system requires short date format to be dd/mm/yyyy. Are there
any solution without changing system date to mm/dd/yyyy? Please help.
Thanks.