Anybody been using Excel since the 1980s?

[centrix]

If so...you know what you are talking about and are a good person to address this question.


I have lots of valuable workbooks with years of info.

How secure can I be that the majority of these workbooks will be around (and working) 20 years from now?

I am very careful. I backup all files when I make big changes and I don’t download Microsoft docs from other people.

 

[mikerickson]

I'm pretty sure that in 20 years, you won't care.

One could preserve the data, making sure to convert to new formats as they come about. But my name is about the only piece of twenty year old data that I care about or use.

If its absolutley crucial that this be preseved for that long, I'd be worried about physical safety of the media. It needs to be protected from both calamity and forgetting where you put that disk.

 

[Smitty]

Anybody been using Excel since the 1980s?

Considering that it wasn't released (for Windows) until 1987, that's a bit of a leading question. And just because someone's used something for a long time doesn't mean they're any good at it and vice versa.

For instance a good friend of mine became a Microsoft Excel MVP after using it for only 2 years. (FWIW I've been using it since '94 and I ain't an MVP. )

How secure can I be that the majority of these workbooks will be around (and working) 20 years from now?

How sure can you be that any of us will be here 20 years from now? (And the way things are going are you sure that you want to be?)

Seriously, do you see the need for spreadsheets going away any time soon? I'm sure that if Microsoft manages to implode and Excel isn't supported, that by then Google or someone else will have stepped in with something comparable.

The most important part is making sure all of those 1 & 0's stay well protected.

Hope that helps,

Smitty

 

[VoG]

What a strange question

A little over 20 years ago I was merrily programming in Fortran IV (I'm not a programmer but that's a different issue). None of those programs have survived as such but a couple have been 'ported' (and much improved) to Excel VBA.

You are right to be concerned about backups but who knows where we will be in 20 years with regard to software and what we want to do with it. In my case I will be happily retired, if not dead, and therefore could not give a monkey's

 

[Smitty]

From a PM:

Thanks PennySaver!

I should have been more clear with my question...

In terms of FILE CORRUPTION and other FILE PROBLEMS....

Are there things that increase the chances that a workbook gets corrupted or malfunctions?

Are there things I could do to maybe prevent corruption?

You can never accurately predict corruption, but one key is to always try to make your workbooks as efficient as possible. This link has some good tips: www.decisionmodels.com

On highly important wb's I turn on the automatic backup feature.

I also try to keep wb's as small as possible, and keep large data sets in Access, but I have that luxury, you might not.

Another thing I do on wb's that have to be big, and if the circumstances allow, is to have one set of master formulas and apply them when necessary, then paste-->value them when I'm done.

While it won't help with corruption per se, I also keep historical files, so as I start a new financial year I can keep previous years' data seperate instead of growing massive files.

Smitty

 

[PaddyD]

Minimum criteria to read a file 20 years later - you will need:

1) the file (better a couple to minimise corruption problems), stored in a format that (3) below can access
2) the programme it was written in
3) a computer with an operating system that will run the programme.

 

[Norie]

Is this really a solely Excel issue?

In your PM to pennysaver you mention file corruption/problems.

Surely that concerns all files.