Excel 2000 File Names Containing Spaces
Posted by Ian Bartlett on June 07, 2001 4:01 AM
I have an Excel 2000 spreadsheet (running under NT4) called Client Names.xls.
If I try to open the file by double clicking it in Explorer, Excel first tells me that it cannot find a file called Client.xls, and then can't find a file called Names.xls.
Following this, the file opens. The same happens if I open the file using a desktop shortcut.
Replacing the space in the name with an underscore cures the problem, but shouldn't I be able to use names with spaces? Is there a setting somewhere that's wrong? Any ideas?
Posted by Eric on June 07, 2001 10:10 AM
M. Killkelly posted a similar problem and I suggested the underscore workaround (19104.html), but I agree with you. That is definitely some sort of bug. I am running NT 4.0 (SP 6a) and I don't get that error, even when I rename a file to "Client Names.xls". If you, like M. Killkelly, also do NOT have this problem when opening the document from within the Excel program (e.g., not using the association procedure to start Excel) then my guess is the problem lies within the windows explorer service, not the Excel program.
One important thing to find out is whether this space problem is specific to excel associations or does this space error occur with other file associations, like *.ppt for powerpoint, etc.
If it's specific for excel, you could try going into windows explorer File Types (My Computer-->View-->Options-->File Types) and find the Microsoft Excel Worksheet listing, click the edit button and see if your mime type matches mine "application/vnd.ms-excel"
You can try playing with that setting or even deleting and recreating the association to see if it fixes the problem.
Good luck!
Posted by Ian Bartlett on June 07, 2001 10:19 PM
Eric,
Thanks for the reply. The problem was indeed Excel-specific, and it was even giving the same error messages where I had spaces in the directory names; I had to fight through a string of screens to open my spreadsheet.
Note the 'was'; I reinstalled Office 2000, and the problem has disappeared. I checked the mime type (after the reinstall) and it matches yours.
Maybe a reinstall would help others with this problem; hardly an elegant solution, but at least it's fixed it for me!
Thanks again,
Ian
Posted by Ian Bartlett on June 07, 2001 10:24 PM
Eric,
I just looked at M. Kilkelly's posting, and it jogged my memory - he mentioned that he is running SR1 of Office 2000, so am I - and this is when the problem started (duuhhh)
The reinstall obviously brought me back to pre-SR1 status, and I guess that's why the problem's now gone.
Anybody else out there on SR1 with problems?
Posted by Ian Bartlett on June 07, 2001 10:27 PM
Eric,
I just looked at M. Kilkelly's posting, and it jogged my memory - he mentioned that he is running SR1 of Office 2000, so am I - and this is when the problem started (duuhhh)
The reinstall obviously brought me back to pre-SR1 status, and I guess that's why the problem's now gone.
Anybody else out there on SR1 with problems?
Posted by Eric on June 08, 2001 8:25 AM
My SR-1 (9.03821) is OK (whew)
Glad you got it working again, that's an interesting point about SR-1. Ill have to watch my copy of office carefully.
