I haven't used xl97 in a longggggg time, so this is a guess.
Try reregistering excel.
Close Excel and
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /unregserver
then
Windows Start Button|Run
excel /regserver
The /unregserver & /regserver stuff resets some of the windows registry to
excel's factory defaults.
And if I recall correctly, .csv files should be opened in excel by default.
One more question...
If you're not using an English version of excel, then maybe the default
extension for comma separated values isn't .CSV????
Do you see that as an option in the the File|SaveAs dialog?