4 ms·

Agreed that it's dumb behaviour, but it's not exactly a complicated hack - just run excel again (from start menu, from win+R, etc.) and it creates a new instanc

by corin_ 13y ago

Agreed that it's dumb behaviour, but it's not exactly a complicated hack - just run excel again (from start menu, from win+R, etc.) and it creates a new instance.

Someone 13y ago
IIRC, older versions of Excel didn't work that way. The OP talks about "a few years ago", so it may have been with an older version that didn't work that way. I have never been able to remember how Excel and Word for Windows handle multiple windows, as it changed in subtle ways (can you alt-tab between Excel documents. Between Word ones? Do documents appear in the taskbar, or windows, or just Excel?) between versions, as Word and Excel within an Office version do not appear to behave 100% the same, and I as I tended to encounter different versions, for example when helping a friend, or when using RDP to a different server (yes, we had servers with Office installed, and we didn't even use them for COM controls) at work.
aestra 13y ago
You think I didn't try that? IIRC opening up Excel again from the start menu didn't create a new instance, it just gave focus to the document/instance I had open. My jaw kinda dropped cause it wasn't like I had an extremely uncommon use case. There was no File > Open new window. I tried dragging the document to outside, like you can do in Firefox with a tab, nope. Opening a new document simply opened it in the current instance I had running. I needed to do a compare side by side of the documents. Switching between them didn't cut it. Btw this is a different problem with Excel and Office all together - I was using Excel 2007 because the files I was using were created in 2007 and used a customer (who had only 2007) and would mess up if you saved them in a later version. The files had some complicated macros in them. Compatibility Mode (I think that's what they called it) WAS NOT actually compatible!! 2010 was out, and I had that installed as well, but 2007 had to be the one I used for this task. I was just doing some simple maintenance operations on them. I had nothing to do with their evil creation. There was some way to eventually get Excel 2007 to run two instances of itself, but like I said, it was a hack that I found online after a bunch of searching.
- corin_ 13y ago
  I may well be wrong about historical behaviour, but for at least a few years now (i.e. within my memory) it's been the case - but you need to create a new instance, not just a new document. I.e. if you open a specific file, or do anything to start a new document from within excel, it will keep the same instance. It's still ridiculous behaviour, and drives me crazy because on a typical day I'll have a minimum of 3 spreadsheets open (3 sheets I always need quick access to) and often 10-20, and it can be a real pain in the ass remembering which sheets are in which instance, leading to regularly needing to close a sheet, start a new excel instance, then re-open the sheet in that, whenever I want to look at it side by side to another sheet. And even more annoying, if I'm opening a sheet that's an email attachment, I can't just open direct from Outlook, I have to save it locally so I can make sure to open it in the correct instance. There's also this weird thing about how it thinks you want to shut down spreadsheets. I always forget which way is which, but sometimes it thinks you want to shut just the active sheet, sometimes it thinks every sheet you have open (in that excel instance). Just checked here and it doesn't seem to be the case on my home PC (Office Professional Plus 2010), but it definitely does on my work laptop. I think it's different behaviour between the X in the top right, double clicking the top left logo, and using alt+F4, I just can't remember which is which. But any logic would say that if you're showing multiple windows on the task bar, telling one to close doesn't mean close the others, and I think this is essentially tied to the same issue with trying to view sheets side by side. I've never had issues with Word as others mentioned, though - possibly due to luck with versions I've used, or maybe I just don't have to compare two word documents side by side as often as I do with spreadsheets.
- lmz 13y ago
  Excel is MDI so what I do is stretch the main window to two screens then put the child windows side by side.

by corin_ 13y ago

Agreed that it's dumb behaviour, but it's not exactly a complicated hack - just run excel again (from start menu, from win+R, etc.) and it creates a new instance.

Someone 13y ago

IIRC, older versions of Excel didn't work that way. The OP talks about "a few years ago", so it may have been with an older version that didn't work that way. I have never been able to remember how Excel and Word for Windows handle multiple windows, as it changed in subtle ways (can you alt-tab between Excel documents. Between Word ones? Do documents appear in the taskbar, or windows, or just Excel?) between versions, as Word and Excel within an Office version do not appear to behave 100% the same, and I as I tended to encounter different versions, for example when helping a friend, or when using RDP to a different server (yes, we had servers with Office installed, and we didn't even use them for COM controls) at work.

aestra 13y ago

You think I didn't try that? IIRC opening up Excel again from the start menu didn't create a new instance, it just gave focus to the document/instance I had open. My jaw kinda dropped cause it wasn't like I had an extremely uncommon use case. There was no File > Open new window. I tried dragging the document to outside, like you can do in Firefox with a tab, nope. Opening a new document simply opened it in the current instance I had running. I needed to do a compare side by side of the documents. Switching between them didn't cut it. Btw this is a different problem with Excel and Office all together - I was using Excel 2007 because the files I was using were created in 2007 and used a customer (who had only 2007) and would mess up if you saved them in a later version. The files had some complicated macros in them. Compatibility Mode (I think that's what they called it) WAS NOT actually compatible!! 2010 was out, and I had that installed as well, but 2007 had to be the one I used for this task. I was just doing some simple maintenance operations on them. I had nothing to do with their evil creation. There was some way to eventually get Excel 2007 to run two instances of itself, but like I said, it was a hack that I found online after a bunch of searching.

corin_ 13y ago
I may well be wrong about historical behaviour, but for at least a few years now (i.e. within my memory) it's been the case - but you need to create a new instance, not just a new document. I.e. if you open a specific file, or do anything to start a new document from within excel, it will keep the same instance. It's still ridiculous behaviour, and drives me crazy because on a typical day I'll have a minimum of 3 spreadsheets open (3 sheets I always need quick access to) and often 10-20, and it can be a real pain in the ass remembering which sheets are in which instance, leading to regularly needing to close a sheet, start a new excel instance, then re-open the sheet in that, whenever I want to look at it side by side to another sheet. And even more annoying, if I'm opening a sheet that's an email attachment, I can't just open direct from Outlook, I have to save it locally so I can make sure to open it in the correct instance. There's also this weird thing about how it thinks you want to shut down spreadsheets. I always forget which way is which, but sometimes it thinks you want to shut just the active sheet, sometimes it thinks every sheet you have open (in that excel instance). Just checked here and it doesn't seem to be the case on my home PC (Office Professional Plus 2010), but it definitely does on my work laptop. I think it's different behaviour between the X in the top right, double clicking the top left logo, and using alt+F4, I just can't remember which is which. But any logic would say that if you're showing multiple windows on the task bar, telling one to close doesn't mean close the others, and I think this is essentially tied to the same issue with trying to view sheets side by side. I've never had issues with Word as others mentioned, though - possibly due to luck with versions I've used, or maybe I just don't have to compare two word documents side by side as often as I do with spreadsheets.
lmz 13y ago
Excel is MDI so what I do is stretch the main window to two screens then put the child windows side by side.