probable cause of excel files getting corrupted

how to find out the probable cause of corruption of excel files...here i m not saying of a single file...files are getting corrupted one after the other...can

1)using windows 8 with excel 2007 and storing the files in .xls be a cause?

2)this files are shared files and are opened in both xp and windows 8 can this be a cause

3)how can i check if my excel source files have got corrupted?

or any other probalbe cause for the file to get corrupted. thanks in advance

Solution 1:

You say the files are "shared files". Does that mean that you have the "Share Workbook" feature enabled? If so, don't worry any more. Sharing workbooks so that multiple users can edit a file is a recipe for disaster. Shared files will eventually become corrupt, impossible to troubleshoot or repair. It's not a question of if it will happen, but rather when it will happen.

There is nothing you can do to repair corrupt shared files.

If you need simultaneous multi-user read/write access to your data, then Excel shared files is NOT the way to go. This Excel feature is riddled with bugs and results in unexpected behaviour.

If you use shared files, be certain to have a strict backup regime, because the files can become corrupt at any time.

For safe multi-user edit access to your data, you may want to explore a database solution like Access or SQL instead. Excel can still be the front end for data entry and reporting, but it was never designed to be a multi-user interface for Excel data.