# MS Excel Problem



## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

One day a few months ago out of the blue, when I was working on one of the channel or comparison charts for the DBSTalk homepage, I went to center some text. When I did I got the infamous illegal operation messege. Of coarse none of my changes were saved. Went back into excel, centered the text w/o a problem. Ever since that, everytime I goto center text in Excel I always get the illegal operation messege, but then when I go back into Excel it works fine. This has continued after completly uninastalling Office and reinstalling it and after *3* system restores. Any ideas, this has become a real pain in the butt and I use Excel for a lot more then just the DBSTalk pages. I have Corel Quatro Pro, but I dont have the time to learn it. I like WordPerfect and Presentations better then Word and PPT. Thanks!


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

Try reformatiing your hard drive, then reinstalling Excel. If that doesn't work, post back.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

One problem, remember I dont have a Windows CD, so an Fdisk would make my PC a door stop.


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

Why exactly don't you have a Windows CD?  Did you copy Windows from a friend? If so (or even if not), I'll tell you that Windows XP is well worth the $99 that an OEM Home full (not an upgrade that you need a CD for) will cost ya.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

No, it came with a system restore disk as most computers do now.


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

Yes, you run the system restore disk. Select the option (it should have one) to format the drive before restoring.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

When I do a system restore, all I do is pop the disc in, restart and away she goes, no options. But tried restores numerous times, and it didnt help


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

So you are reformating your drive (it wipes all your stuff, right?)? Weird. Please post the exact error message you get.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

The one time I try to get a program to crash it doesnt  Works fine now, it mysteriously came and now it looks like and I hope it mysteriosly went!


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

lol Good luck Steve. If it crashes again post the error message and maybe I can help you out.


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## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

Steve,

Just like Windows has service packs, so does Office (thus Excel).

try http://office.microsoft.com/productupdates/

Then pick to detect what updates you may need.

At work I am in an infinite loop in that I had installed Office standard 2000 and then later installed Office Pro 2000 as we got the site license at that point. The Standard disappeared since Pro was bigger and better. But sometimes that update wants to update the Office Standard and wants the install CDs and all we have is the Office Pro :-{

But give it a try. :shrug:


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## RichW (Mar 29, 2002)

"But sometimes that update wants to update the Office Standard and wants the install CDs and all we have is the Office Pro :-{ "

This can happen when you install Office on a system that already has Office. Try uninstalling office completely and then reinstalling Office Pro. Likewise the SR2 update for Office Pro used to give me some problems so I stayed with Office 2000 SR1.

I use Office XP now.


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## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

I remember that I wanted to uninstall Office Std, but the uninstall wanted the original install package to do the uninstall (which has been taken off the install server). So I just installed Office Pro on top of it (gotta get the job done). Well that has come back to kick me several times.


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## RichW (Mar 29, 2002)

You may be able to uninstall Office now without the CD or image for Office std. If you get a message everytime you start an office component (Word, Excel, etc.) an uninstall and reinstall should clear that up. You can also go in and muck with the registry keys if you are man enough. 

(note the smilie)


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## gcutler (Mar 23, 2002)

Registry, Who's getting married??? :lol: Microsoft more than any other vendor will have so many little tie ins that removing Office Manually may require extra Testosterone shots before hand.

I just wish that MS's products were less a problem than anyone elses. I don't know of any other vendors (Lotus, Corel, etc) that make uninstalling such a pain in the ass. 

Now you figure that some guy has an illegal copy and then decides to make everything legit and remove all the illegal SW. Good chance the guy will end up having to go the extra mile to get Office off the system. 

But maybe MS wants to make it as big a pain for the legit user remove it???

At work we just removed Lotus Smart Suite from all the machines after a 1 year "Migration Period" from Lotus SS to MS Office. I'm much happier now. But they will have to pry Lotus Notes from my cold dead hands!!!


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