This works for both XP and Vista so far

create a notepad doc with the following content between the lines and save as excel.bat

______________________
@echo off

cls
echo Set File types to Allow Multiple Excel windows
echo Make sure Excel is closed before you continue

pause

reg export “HKCR\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open” “%~dp0\Excel8_Open.reg”
reg export “HKCR\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open” “%~dp0\Excel12_Open.reg”

reg delete “HKCR\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec”
reg delete “HKCR\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec”

reg import “%cd%\excel.reg”
________________________________________

then create another file in notepad called excel.reg with this content that is between the lines:

______________________________________

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\comman d]
@=”\”C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\EXCEL.EXE\” /e \”%1\”"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\command]
@=”\”C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Office\\Office12\\EXCEL.EXE\” /e \”%1\”"
______________________________

keep them in the same directory and run the excel.bat file. From vista you have to open “cmd” as administrator and run it from the command line

Enjoy,
Britt

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