Opening Excel docs using Excel on Mac suddenly stopped working

tommykelly

Bit poster
[This is similar to the never-resolved issue here http://forum.parallels.com/showthread.php?t=107698]

Until about a week ago, I regularly opened Excel files sitting in my Windows 7 guest using Excel on my OS X host. Then "something happened" and it no longer works. Now when I try to open the files, Excel on the Mac does open, but it merely opens a blank workbook. It does not open the actual file in question. Curiously, if the file in question contains macros, I do *not* get asked if I'm OK enabling macros (despite my Mac Excel settings being such that I should get asked). In other words, it looks like when Mac Excel gets called from Windows, all that gets through is a general call to "open" and not specifically to "open <file foo>". As I say, this has worked perfectly and for many months and only stopped working about a week ago. I cannot remember doing anything that could have caused it.

I have three different machines and the problem has appeared on two, but not on the third. Upgrading to Mountain Lion is neither the cause nor a solution since one, but only one, of the two machines with the problem has been upgraded.

General stats:
* All three setups are the same in terms of the guest machine configuration -- e.g. all are sharing Mac applications with the guest
* Parallel Desktop is version 7, build 7.0.15104, Revision 778994 July 10 2012
* The guest on one of the problem machines is Windows 7 Home Premium (this is the one that has been upped to Mountain Lion)
* The guest on the other problem machine is Windows 7 Ultimate (OS X here is still Lion)
* The guest on the problem-free machine is also Windows 7 Ultimate (in fact it's a copy of the same Win7 Ultimate on the second problem machine). OS X is also still Lion here.
* Parallel Tools is up to date on all machines
* Excel on all machines is Microsoft Excel for Mac 2011, Version 14.2.3

thanks for any insights,
Tommy
 
Any luck on this? I have the same. Used to export form within an app to Excel - now getting errors.
Nope, sorry, not a word. As I said, this appears to have been an issue as far back as January 2011 if not before, but no one got a solution back then either. Looks like no one from Parallels actually frequents this forum.

That said, I'm not getting "errors" per se. I simply see the Mac Excel open but with an empty document. Are you actually getting some kind of error message? If so, what is it? It might be a clue as to what's going on.
 
This appears to have been fixed by the recent Parallels update. I just updated to Build 7.0.15106
(Revision 786747; August 3, 2012), and having the Windows guest use Mac Excel as its default application for Excel files is working again.
 
Back
Top