Ref Edit Control Error Excel 2003 files opening in Excel 2002

[Paul Cordts]

I have several thousand files that were created with Excel 2002. They have
some custom VB programming including an Auto Open macro and an SheetChange
marco. One of the loaded available references in the Ref Edit Control.

If I open a file on a machine with Excel 2002 and check the location it is
listed as
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\REFEDIT.DLL. The file opens
without issue

If I open the same file on a machine with Excel 2003 and check the location
it is listed as:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\REFEDIT.DLL. The file opens
without issue.

I save this file on an Excel 2003 machine and then attempt to open the file
on a 2002 machine. I get the message "Compile Error in Hidden Module" and
none of the macros function. When I check the available references the Ref
Edit Control is listed as Missing and the path is
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office11\REFEDIT.DLL.

Other references (such as the Excel 10.0 (or 11.0) Obejct library) switch
paths without issue.

Removing the Ref Edit Control reference or redirecting back to the Office10
location both solve the problem. Removing the reference is OK since I am not
using this function.

Since I have a lot of file that may potentially have this issue (many users
access and save these files-some have Excel 2002 and some have Excel 2003) I
am wondering if anyone knows a way to do either or all of these items.

Somhow reconfigure Excel 2003 so that saving the file in Excel and reopening
in Excel 2002 allows Excel 2002 to find the path.

Or reconfigure Excel 2002 so that it can find the path without having to
individually reset the path for each file

Or use VB to automatically remove the reference.

Sorry about the length, but I wanted to make sure I accurately captured this
issue. Any help anyone can offer would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Mark]

We also have this problem although between Excel 2003 and 2007. When the
file is saved in 2007 and reopened in 2003, the refedit.dll path doesn't
change to the 2003 path resulting in "compile error.." on most machines. But
we do have ONE machine where excel 2003 was able to open; the path was
adjusted correctly.

MPL