Open separate instances of excel

[Waterboy]

When I open an excel document, excel opens the document in the same instance
of excel. When you close excel, it closes all open workbooks. I would like
to be able to close the instance of excel that I am working in (by hitting
the top X) and continue to work on seperate excel documents that are open.
This works in Word, but not in excel. Any ideas on how to fix this one?
Thank you!

 

[FSt1]

hi,
in excel, there are 2 X's. the big red X closes excel and all worksheets.
the small black x under the big red X closes the active work sheet only and
leaves the rest of the worksheets open.
Regards
FSt1

 

[William Horton]

You can do that but you will have to open every single Excel file that you
open in a separate instance of Excel.
Example, you open up Excel and then open up Book1. If now you want to open
up Book2 you can NOT just click on file / open. You will have to start Excel
again by either following Start / Programs / Excel or double-clicking the
Excel icon on your desktop, etc and then open up Book2. Now you have 2
separate instances of Excel, each with one workbook open. When you close the
Excel instance that has Book1 open, the instance with Book2 open remains.

Not sure why you want to do this though (unless you have some macro
automation with other Microsoft products ex, Access). You can just close the
individual workbooks in Excel and still leave Excel up and running with
whatever other workbooks are already open in the same instance.

 

[Waterboy]

(I posted the same reply to FSt1)
I am in IT support and a user asked me about that. I know there are the two
X's but for some reason she likes to have separate instances running so she
can click the top X and only close the active workbook. I just thought there
might be a setting in excel or in Microsoft that would allow you to do this.
I will let her know that the correct way to do this is to open excel
seperately and then open the file(s) of interest. Thank you very much for
your help.

 

[Waterboy]

I am in IT support and a user asked me about that. I know there are the two
X's but for some reason she likes to have separate instances running so she
can click the top X and only close the active workbook. I just thought there
might be a setting in excel or in Microsoft that would allow you to do this.
I will let her know that the correct way to do this is to open excel
seperately and then open the file(s) of interest. Thank you very much for
your help.

 

[Dan H]

I had the opposite problem. try going to "Tools"-"Options" on the view tab
check "Windows in Task Bar"