Excel 2008 has become unusable

[Christopher Edmonds]

We use Excel 2008 to manage relatively small datasets for our company
(20-30 columns max, 1500 rows max).

The various files range from nothing except data, to some with
conditional formatting, formulas and data validation (lists)

We use Excel w/ the latest updates on a PMG5 tower and on a MacBook
Pro, both running Leopard 10.5.3

We have repeated problems on both machines with hangs, crashes, "Out
of memory" errors, the window resize bug (only on the MBP), double-
click not opening files, and stray pulldown boxes in some files that
won't disappear.

We've owned Office 2004, Office X and before, and never had as much
problems as we're having now.

This is really a terrible product- MS should be ashamed. we've already
migrated mostly to Pages for similar reasons.

 

[Ian1]

I agree. I have a 12-page spreadsheet and keep getting the phony circular-
reference pop-up that Microsoft claims to be working on. It pops up even if
I am just attempting to hide or insert a row! It also keeps crashing. Today
I was updating the data in about 50 cells and it crashed 4 times saying it
was calculating cells and the wheel of death spun and spun.

 

[Pat McMillan]

I worked on Excel 2008, and I feel terrible to hear of your bad experiences
with the product. We've already released two updates since 12.0 that have
included hundreds of improvements. I hope that convinces you that we're
serious about fixing any problems we have. We do have a fix for the bogus
circular reference problem and we expect to release an update with it soon.
It's unfortunately not that easy to release updates to a product as big and
complex as Office.

Since we do want to fix any significant problems that are out there, myself
and my colleagues have made it very clear on this newsgroup that we want to
track down any issues that are impacting customers in a negative way. With
that in mind, if you could copy and paste the crash log that you get when
clicking More Information in the Microsoft Error Reporting window when Excel
crashes and send it to me at (e-mail address removed), it would really help us
investigate the problem. If you're able to send a long a file that
reproduces the crash, that would be even better.

Thanks,

Pat

 

[Christopher Edmonds]

That's an honest answer- sending you crash reports as they happen.

Also, I have to say that saves are SLLLLOOOOWWWW