Excel Hidden on some PCs (as coded) but shows on others.

[Kruxe]

Hi all,

I'm experiencing an issue with excel where when the script executes, excel will be hidden on some PCs but shows up on others. All the PCs have the same version of Microsoft office installed and I'm executing the same script coded with the line below that is supposed to keep excel hidden. Has anyone experienced this issue before or am I the only one?  

Local $oExcel = _Excel_Open(False)

thanks for the help!

Kruxe 

[water]

Whats the value of @error and @extended after _Excel_Open?

[Kruxe]

1 hour ago, water said:

Whats the value of @error and @extended after _Excel_Open?

Hey Water,

I'm not sure what you mean, I'm not getting an error at all. The script executes and does what it is coded to do but on some PCs excel just pops up.. 

the @extended return shows "1"

Edited October 13, 2020 by Kruxe

[water]

@extended = 1 stands for: Excel was not running ... A new Excel instance has been created.

Can you please check on the PCs where Excel  does not become invisible if Excel is running when starting your script (make sure there is no Excel.exe running by checking the task manager).

[Kruxe]

50 minutes ago, water said:

@extended = 1 stands for: Excel was not running ... A new Excel instance has been created.

Can you please check on the PCs where Excel  does not become invisible if Excel is running when starting your script (make sure there is no Excel.exe running by checking the task manager).

I did not see any instances of Excel running and it still popped up. Now the file is a shared file, could that have anything to do with it? its just weird because its hidden on other PCs..

[water]

1 hour ago, Kruxe said:

Now the file is a shared file

I have never heard of a problem with _Excel_Open not changing the appplication to invisible.
Two possible problems come to my mind:

• Another step in your script resets the application to visible.
  Test: Please insert a MsgBox after _Excel_Open. Is the Excel app still invisible? Does it get visible after the MsgBox?
• The location of your workbook causes the problem.
  Test: Could you please copy the workbook to a local drive and start it from there?

[Kruxe]

57 minutes ago, water said:

I have never heard of a problem with _Excel_Open not changing the appplication to invisible.
Two possible problems come to my mind:

• Another step in your script resets the application to visible.
  Test: Please insert a MsgBox after _Excel_Open. Is the Excel app still invisible? Does it get visible after the MsgBox?
• The location of your workbook causes the problem.
  Test: Could you please copy the workbook to a local drive and start it from there?

so it does become visible after the MsgBox..

[water]

Great.
So the problem is caused by something that happens after _OL_Open.
That's either caused by something in your script or something in the workbook (macro, Excel-Add-In etc.)

[Kruxe]

ahhh! I did notice an add-in installed in the ribbon bar, I will try to remove it and run the script again.

thanks again for the help water!

Kruxe

[water]

Ahh, those 👿 Add-Ins. Most of unexplainable problems are caused by badly written Add-Ins.

[Kruxe]

so I removed all the add-ins and it still pops up! I made it a regular workbook (Was a shared workbook) and it works fine... Only issue is.. I need it to be shared LOL!

[water]

In this case you might have to rethink your design. Maybe a solution built on a database better fits your needs  

Edited October 14, 2020 by water

[Kruxe]

pooo =[

[water]

Or if you need to use Excel. Split your data processing into two pieces:

• Script for your Client PCs to read the Excel data: If necessary copy the Excel workbook from the shared drive to a local drive, open the workbook as read-only and do all read-only processing.
• Script for your Client PCs to write to the Excel workbook: Write all modifications to a file with PC-name and date/time in the filename.
• Script on a "server": Read all modifcation files and update the shared Excel

But I would still recommend a DB-based solution. A DB is made for concurrent processing.

[Kruxe]

I think I solved the issue..

1. So originally I was using the excel UDFs codded in the fashion below and excel was still popping up on some PCs.

     Global $oExcel = _Excel_Open(False)
     Global $oWorkbook = _Excel_BookOpen($oExcel,"File Path to Shared Workbook")

2. I attempted to change the parameters of the UDFs even further and it still popped up..

     Global $oExcel = _Excel_Open(False)
     Global $oWorkbook = _Excel_BookOpen($oExcel,"File Path to Shared Workbook", True, False) 

3. Finally I just ended up creating the object and using the COM rout. This worked, Excel does not show up on any PC.

    Global $oExcel = ObjCreate("Excel.Application")
    Global $oWorkbook = $oExcel.Workbooks.Open("File Path to Shared Workbook")
    $oExcel.Visible = False

Could there be an issue with the way the Excel UDF is handling this? Again, I really appreciate your time and help, just wanted to share the solution that's currently working for me. 

- Kruxe

[water]

Thanks for your feedback!

_Excel_Open does a few things more, but nothing that can cause this problems (at least I think so).

As it is working for you now and this problem never happened before, I think we can close the case

[TheXman]

1 hour ago, Kruxe said:

Global $oWorkbook = _Excel_BookOpen($oExcel,"File Path to Shared Workbook", True, False)

Be careful setting & saving the visibility of a workbook to false.  In most cases its not really necessary, especially if you are setting Excel's visibility to false.  If for any reason you exit the script before resetting the workbook's visibility back to true, you will not be able to see the workbook again until its visibility flag is set back to true.

Basically the same thing is stated in the help file's remarks for _Excel_BookOpen.

Edited October 14, 2020 by TheXman
Added link to help file

[Kruxe]

18 minutes ago, water said:

Thanks for your feedback!

_Excel_Open does a few things more, but nothing that can cause this problems (at least I think so).

As it is working for you now and this problem never happened before, I think we can close the case

sounds good to me! haha

[Kruxe]

4 minutes ago, TheXman said:

Be careful setting the visibility of a workbook to false.  In most cases its not really necessary, especially if you are setting Excel's visibility to false.  If for any reason you exit the script before resetting the workbook's visibility back to true, you will not be able to see the workbook again until its visibility flag is set back to true.

Good to know, thanks for the info!

[water]

This is described in the help file too