You can’t open files with the same name in Excel. You have to change the name of one of them. If you get the error that 2 files are open and you only have one file open, your macro’s are pointing to the file that has the macro’s you want to use. Fix that by updating the macro’s on your current file and remove the referrence to the original or other file. Example your macro says “U:\time!macro1″ delete “U:\time!” and your macro will work fine.

I have received the same error but i have only one file open! Recently upgraded the OS from t 4 to 2000 pro. Any sugestions on fixing this?

I wonder if Open Office has the same problem? I’m doing my best to de-Microsoft my life these days, and you’ve just given me another reason to do so.

Heh, wierd. I just noticed that the problem is non-existent on MS Word though. By the way, this comment edit box gives a js error everytime you type a character into it in IE 6 *ducks for cover*

I fixed it as follows.

1) First, I made sure nothing was corrupted in Office by reinstalling it from the CD (although, the re-install said that it could not install something related to html. This did not affect me, though)

2) I noticed that I only had this problem with one worksheet, in particular, that had many worksheets within it (ie. I did not get this error message if I created a new worksheet, and then tried to open it).

3) So, I created a new worksheet, and migrated worksheets from my original, one by one, to the new worksheet (saving, opening, and closing both worksheets after I made a change), until I found a worksheet that caused the problem (ie. I could now open my original without the error, after I moved one of the worksheets out, and the othe worksheet had the error).

4) So, now the problem worksheet was in a different, separate worksheet.

5) I created a blank worksheet within my original.

6) I transferred the data back (copy and pasted) from the one causing the problem, to the original.

7) I think that is what fixed it, but I also noticed that under Insert / Name / Define, many of my Go To macros pointed to outdated range definitions, and referenced other worksheets, so I also deleted all of those also. The probably wouldn’t have been a cause of the problem, though, as they only do something when you click on them. I deleted them anyway, though, because they were sloppy and inaccurate.

8) Conclusion: When you go to Tools / Macros / Macros – I find that the problem worksheet does not have any macros in it. I think the problem has to do with the part of the error message that says a problem could result from the use of templates – which means copying and pasting a worksheet, on which to do updates, which I did.

Repair the file association for Microsoft Excel files.

Click Start, Run, and enter excel /regserver
Insert the Microsoft Office installation media if prompted to do so.
Applies to
Microsoft Office (any version)

Not only error for excel but also present everywhere, to impossible to open the same name document at the same time. If you are trying to open then you are doing confused to pc. Because if you give wrong input then it will give wrong output.

Thank you

Damon Thomas

Love Excel, but never knew such a simple thing does not have a workaround yet.

However, I see how references across two different files can create problems for Excel if the filenames are the same. Requiring unique names surely is a fix, but not a good fix.