Office 2007 Madness!

Joe4

MrExcel MVP, Junior Admin
Joined
Aug 1, 2002
Messages
71,935
Office Version
  1. 365
Platform
  1. Windows
We are converting to Office 2007, and I have encountered some downright frustrating things that they have taken away in Excel and VBA.

1. FileSearch functionality gone (VBA)
2. Ability to save to a DBF (DB4) file (Excel and VBA)

Thanks to some people here, I got a workaround to item #1. And from my research on the web, I haven't found an Excel workaround for item #2. It looks like I will have to use Access to save to a DBF file. Not a big deal, as I am quite proficient in Access, just a pain in the neck in that I need to convert a bunch of programs.

The second item really irks me though. According to what I have read, it is "planned" obsolesence by Microsoft, as they determined that there is an out-dated functionality isn't really used anymore, though a simple search of the web clearly disputes that notion (as do many people in our office). Makes me wonder, do they do any research before making such crazy statements?

Anyway, venting isn't the only reason for this post (though it does feel good to get it off my chest), I also have a few discussion questions:

1. Has anyone found any other workarounds to item #2 that continues to use Excel VBA?

2. Does anyone know if there is any chance Microsoft might restore this feature in a future patch/release?

Thanks.
 

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The 'official line' can be seen here. Doesn't really elaborate on what the research consists of though.
 
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...And it was apparently the same research that led them to hide FileSearch. Later, they realised that they had goofed: I understand that FileSearch will make a comeback in Office14. Still means we need a workaround for anyone on Office12...

Denis
 
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Rory,

That was the link I found too. These parts really got to me:
let me say that we never make decisions lightly about removing functionality that has been in the product. We rarely remove functionality and strive for backwards compatibility with every version.
Historically Excel has supported many different data formats. We have determined that a number of these older formats are seldom, if ever used.
"seldom, if ever" are pretty strong words, and makes me wonder what kind of research they did, because they certainly didn't ask me, or the many other people on the internet that are complaining about it. Maybe they took an internal office poll or something...

Glad to see that FileSearch may make a comeback, but that doesn't help us now!
 
Last edited:
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Glad to see that FileSearch may make a comeback, but that doesn't help us now!

Yeah... and probably never will, because it will always be incompatible with Office 2007.

A quick question re the DBF format. Can you kludge it by creating a tab or comma-delimited export with a different file extension, or is there more to the format than that?

Denis
 
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Denis,

No, unfortunately we need to create DBF files that are used as control files in another non-MS application (that requires them to be in DBF format).
 
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****. Any chance you could keep one copy of Office 2003 on your PC, say in a VirtualPC setup? How many people need to be able to generate the DBF files?

Denis
 
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Unfortunately, it is 6 people covering 2 departments. Our parent company is trying to force everyone to upgrade to Office 2007 so that we are all on the same system. I love the idea of everyone being on the same system, if it were 2003 and not 2007! But I guess we would have to face the music and address this sooner or later...
 
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Interesting... I wouldn't mind playing around with that when I get more time. Somebody should create some sort of add-in that does that and market it. There's some money to be made there!

With the time crunch I am in right now, I will probably just end up exporting the data to an Excel or text file and then using Access to convert it to a DBF. Its not that hard, just a nuisance that I have to do this to a bunch of processes that have been working fine for years...
 
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