'Find' already wanting to look for something

[Von Pookie]

This is something *I've* never seen before, but not sure if anyone else has come across this.

For some reason lately whenever I use Ctrl+F to open the Find dialog, there is already something in the 'find what' box. It is always the number 211.

I didn't notice this until this week, but it happens with any workbook--even a blank one with no macros/data anywhere. Also, there is nothing in the personal workbook that would be doing this. The only Workbook_Open macro I have is to make sure the task pane comes up when I start Excel, and no personal.xls macros have anything to do with searching/finding.

Any ideas on why this is happening? If I can't get rid of it, I guess it's not that big of a deal as I can just type over it when I bring up the box (which is what I've been doing). I'm just finding the whole thing rather odd.

Thanks!

 

[BrianB]

It is "a Feature, not a Bug" <grin>.

This is so we don't have to keep typing in the data when we need to find the next occurrence. It retains all the other Find requirements too (match case etc.)

In VBA code we can simply use FindNext.

 

[Von Pookie]

It is "a Feature, not a Bug" <grin>.

This is so we don't have to keep typing in the data when we need to find the next occurrence. It retains all the other Find requirements too (match case etc.)

In VBA code we can simply use FindNext.

No, it's not the same thing.

I understand that it keeps the search terms in the box while you're still using the program. This is not the problem. This is happening even if Excel has been closed, reopened and something completely different searched for in the meantime.

 

[just_jon]

Nothing running in Personal.xls on startup or anything, Kristy? [Yeah, Yeah, Yeah - 40 years and counting...]

 

[Von Pookie]

Hey Jon!

Nothing in the Personal.xls that has anything to do with searches, at any rate. The only auto run macro is to force the task pane to come up and the others are just some alignment & fill macros I set to some shortcuts.

*shrug*

I've no clue what I managed to do this time

 

[Tom Urtis]

What version of Excel are you using? I have 2003 and maybe a month ago I noticed the same thing you describe for the first time. It happens off and on, infrequent but curious, because there's no predictability or apparent reason why. The first time it happened to me was in the form of an astersik by itself in the Find what box, which I am positive I have never searched for by itself after I installed 2003, so I don't know why that would have appeared. If I hear any info I'll post back, but at least both of us can now know we aren't imagining it.

 

[Von Pookie]

Someone going crazy with me for once, yay!

I'm running 2002 (XP). I'm with you, though. I have no clue why it decided to search for '211' constantly. I've even tried rebooting, but it still insists it needs to find that number.

At least when you bring up the 'find' window it's already selected so you can type right over it. If it wasn't for that, I would be VERY aggravated right now.

 

[Cbrine]

Maybe it's doing some kind of registry save of the search value. I don't know if you want to go this far, but try regedit and search for the string, and see if it comes up in relation to Microsoft, it won't help much, but at least you will know it's storing the values in the registry. If so, maybe it's some kind of feature, although you would think it would be consitant each time???? if that were the case.

 

[Von Pookie]

Well, checking the registry didn't turn up anything.

On a whim, I posted it to the Excel newsgroup over at the Microsoft support site.

The only suggestion I got was to try starting Excel in safe mode (which will keep all addins and personal.xls macros) from loading and see if it still does it.

It didn't. I then started turning the addins back on one by one.

The culprit appears to be ASAP Utilities.

It doesn't bring up the 211 until I start that, and then it keeps it even if I turn it off. If you start Excel the normal way without ASAP loading, there's no 211 to be found.

I'm going to see if reinstalling it will do anything.

 

[Von Pookie]

Uninstalling completely and reinstalling seems to have done the trick.