I have a very wierd thing happening when I use Excel - haven't seen it in other Office applications. I am using Microsoft Office 2000; and running Windows 2000 Professional OS. I use excel spreadsheets for quite a bit of things and have this odd thing that happens. When I have a spreadsheet open and am working in it ,I use the "tab" key to move about the cells. Sporatically (sp?) the spreadsheet will minimize down to the task bar on it's own without me specifically clicking on the "_" at the top. I run AVG Antivirus every morning; Spybot Search & Destroy, AdAware SE, CCleaner, & ATF Cleaner on a weekly basis and none of them have found anything that has stopped this from happening. At first I thought it was a shortcut button or the Ctrl or Alt buttons that I was hitting by mistake, but I don't think that is what is happening, because I can't get it to replicate on purpose. Does anyone have any ideas what it happening? I also put in the disc and ran the "Office Repair". It didn't help. Thank You.

Hello gtbase,

Sorry to hear about the problem you are having with Excel. You have described the situation very well. Have you verified that Excel is in fact minimizing? That is, make sure Excel is the only program open and then go about your normal process. When the problem occurs, you should see your desktop if the tab key is minimizing Excel.

I am wondering if you can try a different keyboard on your computer. The thinking here is that the keyboard may be shorting, has some stuck keys, or is a keyboard that has customizable features. It would be preferable to try one that doesn't have any special function keys.

Regards,

Ax

Ax-Thank you for your response. The only thing "running" is the "my documents" folder; when excel minimizes, I then see the My Documents folder and the excel document that I am/was working in is a tab on the task bar. I have never closed out the My Documents folder before, but if you think that might be causing it I certainly can try that to see if there is an "overload"; I have quite a few documents in the folder and it wouldn't be anything to separate them into individual folders by type.
I never gave the keyboard itself a thought, and as far as I know I don't have any of the hot keys activated on it. It is a fairly simple keyboard, the std. Microsoft "plug-in type", but it is old, so that could be the issue. However, if it is a "short" of sorts, wouldn't it happen in my other Office programs too? I have a lot of Word and Publisher files that I use, plus Quickbooks and nothing else is acting strangly.

gtbase,

Sorry to confuse you, but I wasn't saying that another window open would be the problem. I am trying to determine whether the system receives an Alt-Tab keystroke at times, which it would then cycle to the next window open. This would give the appearance that your Excel window was minimized, as all you would see would be a tab in the task bar for it. In this case though, it would not be minimized, just not the top-level window. If Excel is the only window open, you'll be able to see whether it minimizes the window or not, as an Alt-Tab would just make the Excel window lose focus.

It may or may not happen in your other programs if it is a short. It was in haste that I suggested using another keyboard and that might still be what we want to try. But for now, we'll just try one thing at a time to attempt the resolution. First try using Excel as the only window open and we'll go from there.

Regards,

Ax

Ax-Well, now I feel really dumb!! I opened up my main excel spreadsheet and paid more attention to what I was doing - and I don't want to sound like I'm touting my own horn here - but the excel sheet that it happens most on is my ledger here at work, which is of course fairly repetitive motions. I noticed that the speed at which I'm doing my entries combined with my own personal habit of using my left forefinger to tab over to the next cell that I want, puts my thumb right over the Alt key (I have a small hand). As I smack the tab key, I'm also hitting the ALT key. DUUUHHH. I have obviously never used the shortcut of Tab+Alt to toggle between windows or I would have known this bit of info. Thank you! It's amazing that I can figure out some tech things that are more involved, but this entirely escaped me.

gtbase,

Great to hear it! No need to feel dumb though, we all do silly things out of habit that go without a thought. We also all learn something new everyday, which in this case would help you out. You can switch the active window much faster by pressing Alt and tabbing through the open windows. Here are some more keystrokes that can prevent repetitive strain:
Common Windows Keystrokes

Regards,

Ax

Hello...I'm actually receiving the same problem....but mine isn't a stuck key, key combo or shorted keyboard. This only happens with Excel 2003, not the other programs in the Suite.....when opening and Excel doc in Outlook, I'll open the Excel attachment just fine...meaning it launches/opens up in Normal view. Then I minimize it and open another email. I proceed to open the 2nd Excel attachment and it does not launch in Normal view but minimized on the Task bar. Like I stated earlier....I can perform this test with any other application and when opening the 2 email it launches in Normal view.

Can anyone help?