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Thread: Excel - Running Spreadsheet From DeskTop ShortCut

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    Excel - Running Spreadsheet From DeskTop ShortCut

    I have about 50 people using an Excel application that I got handed when the original author retired (the same app that has the screwy protection scheme that befuddled me in an earlier thread).

    There is one main menu spreadsheet and three template spreadsheets and tons of VBA code on the main menu spreadsheet that drive this thing. The main menu and all three templates live on a network drive, so everyone using the app uses the exact same menu spreadsheet (which is set up as “Shared”) and the same three templates.

    Late yesterday afternoon one of the users came to me with a print out based on her use of one of the templates. The numbers on the print out were all screwy and she wanted me to fix it. I could not replicate the problem. When I ran exactly what she ran, things worked just fine for me. So, I went to two other people in the department and had them run the exact same thing she ran and that I just finished running. Both of them got the correct results.

    Clearly something was going on on her individual machine. I sat down at her desk, the main menu screen spreadsheet was up, I re-ran her thing, and sure enough, the results came out all whacky.

    It turns out that of all the users, she is the only one that decided it would save some steps if she created a desktop shortcut to the main menu spreadsheet rather than navigate herself to its location on the network drive. This morning I went to her machine, and ran the app from her shortcut. The results were all screwed up. I closed everything, and, still on her machine, navigated myself to the network location of the main menu file, ran it, and everything was correct.

    Thus my question: Why, in the name of everything that is good and holy in the universe, would running a spreadsheet from desktop shortcut muck up the VBA code driving the application? I’m not looking for a resolution as the obvious answer is to not run it from the shortcut, but I am curious beyond definition of curious as to why this happened. As anyone experienced anything like this? Does anyone have an explanation, regardless of how implausible or “out there” it might be?

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    Discovering Life Siddharth Rout's Avatar
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    Re: Excel - Running Spreadsheet From DeskTop ShortCut

    Thus my question: Why, in the name of everything that is good and holy in the universe, would running a spreadsheet from desktop shortcut muck up the VBA code driving the application? I’m not looking for a resolution as the obvious answer is to not run it from the shortcut, but I am curious beyond definition of curious as to why this happened. As anyone experienced anything like this? Does anyone have an explanation, regardless of how implausible or “out there” it might be?
    Hi Hack

    Do you get screwy results when you run the file from a shortcut from your pc or from the other 2 user's pc?
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    Re: Excel - Running Spreadsheet From DeskTop ShortCut

    You should check how the shortcut was created.
    Are you sure the shortcut point to the correct file (or the correct version)?

    Try this to see what happens:
    . From your PC, navigate to where the file is,
    . right click on the file then select Create Shortcut.
    . That will create a shortcut at the same location of the main file.
    . Drag that shortcut to your desktop (it will be copied).
    . Try to open the file with that shortcut.

    If it's Ok (it should be Ok), email that shortcut to all of your users, ask them to save it to their desktop then access the file from there.

    * To fool novice users, I usually set the main file hidden, even the network folder hidden.

    ** If the workbook does not have any data to shared between users and it serves as template only then why not save it as a Template (*.xlt) instead of "shared" workbook *.xls. A shared workbook between many users will be much larger in size and take more time to load and save.
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    Re: Excel - Running Spreadsheet From DeskTop ShortCut

    Quote Originally Posted by koolsid
    Do you get screwy results when you run the file from a shortcut from your pc or from the other 2 user's pc?
    Yes, from both.

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    Re: Excel - Running Spreadsheet From DeskTop ShortCut

    Quote Originally Posted by anhn
    You should check how the shortcut was created.
    I deleted it, and recreated it myself (right mouse click - drag to desktop - click "Create Shortcut Here")
    Quote Originally Posted by anhn
    Are you sure the shortcut point to the correct file (or the correct version)?
    Yes. There is only one version to which they have access and that file is only in one place.
    Quote Originally Posted by anhn
    Try this to see what happens:
    . From your PC, navigate to where the file is,
    . right click on the file then select Create Shortcut.
    . That will create a shortcut at the same location of the main file.
    . Drag that shortcut to your desktop (it will be copied).
    . Try to open the file with that shortcut.
    Slick trick.....I'll try that and see what happens.

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    Re: Excel - Running Spreadsheet From DeskTop ShortCut

    Quote Originally Posted by anhn
    Try this to see what happens:
    . From your PC, navigate to where the file is,
    . right click on the file then select Create Shortcut.
    . That will create a shortcut at the same location of the main file.
    . Drag that shortcut to your desktop (it will be copied).
    . Try to open the file with that shortcut.
    This worked fine on my machine (laptop), but did not work on hers (also a laptop).

    Both laptops are standard company/corporate issue so I'm wondering what the difference could be. I'll be diving into the "inards" of her laptop to see what I can find out.

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    Re: Excel - Running Spreadsheet From DeskTop ShortCut

    Both look to be configured exactly the same way with the only difference being mine is a developer laptop. But, I can't image that having an impact on a shortcut.

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    Re: Excel - Running Spreadsheet From DeskTop ShortCut

    -It could be that it is referencing a file base from where it is located

    Did you try to run her spreadsheet from the source?
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