How to make Excel 2000 show different workbooks as separate icons on Taskbar?

I am running Office 2000/Excel 2000 on Windows 7.

My Win7 Taskbar property is set to "Never combine" Taskbar buttons.

Something changed on either Excel2000 or on Windows 7 that has caused a problem.

Previously, this is how Excel2000 worked.

1. I go to a folder in Windows Explorer and click on an Excel file. Excel starts and then opens the Excel file that I clicked on.

2. I go to another folder and click on another Excel file (file #2). Excel already has an instance working so it opens the 2nd file. But it does not start another instance of Excel. Instead, the Win7 Taskbar shows a 2nd Excel icon/button. And each of the icons/buttons shows the title of the Workbook.

3. I go to the Windows Explorer and click on a 3rd Excel file (file #3). Again, Excel already has an instance running so it opens the 3rd file in the same instance that has the other 2 files open.

BUT, the Win7 Taskbar has 3 Excel icons/buttons with the title.

4. This allows me to click on the Excel icon/button to Restore/Activate the workbook without having to go into the Excel instance and having to minimize one Workbook and having to restore the other one.

NOW, this is what happens

1. I go to a folder in Windows Explorer and click on an Excel file. Excel starts and then opens the Excel file that I clicked on.

There is one Excel icon/button on the Win7 taskbar.

2. I go to another folder and click on another Excel file (file #2). Excel already has an instance working so it opens the 2nd file in the instance from Step 1. However, there is only one Excel icon on the Win7 taskbar.

3. I go to another folder and click on another Excel file (file #3). Excel already has a running instance so it opens the 3rd file in the instance from Step 1. Still, there is only one Excel icon on the Win7 taskbar.

4. There is only one Excel icon on the Win7 taskbar. So if I want to switch between the 3 Excel files/workbooks, I have to go into Excel and have to minimize the other workbooks and restore the workbook I want to work on.

Switching between workbooks is not facilitated anymore by the Excel icons on the Taskbar.

I have NOT changed the Taskbar property or the Excel options. Is there any way I can go back to how Excel worked before? Is there some Registry key for Excel that got changed that I should edit to make Excel go back to the previous behavior?

Solution 1:

That's a mighty old combo. Even Microsoft doesn't support that anymore.

IIRC, there is a setting in the Excel options to show workbook windows as separate icons in the task bar. Excel Options > Advanced > scroll down to Display settings > tick Show all windows in the taskbar.

This setting should exist in Excel versions up to XL 2010. With XL 2013, the underlying model was changed to show each workbook in its own Excel window anyway, which always creates a separate taskbar icon, too.

If that setting is already in place, then you need to look at what else has changed on your machine recently. There shouldn't be any updates to Excel 2000 anymore, but there may have been updates to Windows 7. You may want to roll back these updates.

It's been a long time since I worked with single session versions of Excel, but I think Ctrl-Tab is a shortcut to switch to a different workbook from the same window. Maybe that helps.