XL97: Invalid Page Fault After Closing Last Open Workbook (158895)

SYMPTOMS

In Microsoft Excel 97, when you close the last open workbook, you may receive an error message.

If you are using Microsoft Windows 95 or 98, you may see the following error message:

This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.
If the problem persists, contact the program vendor.

If you click Details, you receive an error message similar to the following

EXCEL caused an invalid page fault in module EXCEL.EXE at
<xxxx:yyyyyyyy>.

where <xxxx:yyyyyyyy> is any of the following addresses:

014f:300f1b0a 0137:3003cf1c
014f:300ef16b
014f:302946ee
014f:3003cf1c

or any other address starting with "014f:30" or "0137:".

If you are using Microsoft Windows NT Workstation 4.0, you may see the following error message:

An application error has occurred and an application error log is
being generated.

Excel.exe

Exception: access violation (0xc0000005), Address 0x30296879

CAUSE

This problem may occur when the following conditions are all true:

You create the instance of Microsoft Excel 97 with the CreateObject method in a Visual Basic for Applications macro.

-and-
The Visual Basic code that creates the instance of Microsoft Excel carries out the following sequence of actions before releasing control:
- The macro creates a new workbook, or opens an existing workbook or other file in the instance of Microsoft Excel.
- The macro makes the instance of Microsoft Excel 97 visible by setting its Visible property to True.
- The macro releases the Microsoft Excel 97 application object without first closing the instance.

RESOLUTION

To correct this problem, obtain Microsoft Excel 97 Service Release 2 (SR-2).

For additional information about SR-2, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

151261 OFF97: How to Obtain and Install MS Office 97 SR-2

Temporary Workaround

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http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;CNTACTMS

To temporarily work around this problem, make the Microsoft Excel 97 application object visible BEFORE you create a new workbook, or open an existing workbook or other file. For example, instead of using the following code

   xlObj.Workbooks.Open "C:\My Documents\Test.xls"
   xlObj.Visible = True

use this code:

   xlObj.Visible = True
   xlObj.Workbooks.Open "C:\My Documents\Test.xls"

When you switch the order of these two actions, the instance of Microsoft Excel 97 that you create does not stop responding when you close the last open workbook.

Or, you can set the UserControl property of the Excel Application object to True. For example:

   xlObj.Workbooks.Open "C:\My Documents\Test.xls"
   xlObj.Visible = True
   xlObj.UserControl = True

MORE INFORMATION

In Visual Basic, you can use the CreateObject method to create new instances of applications. To create a new instance of Microsoft Excel 97, you use the following code:

   Set <objectname> = CreateObject("Excel.Application")

where <objectname> is a variable that you declare as type Object.

If you create a new instance of Microsoft Excel 97, and then leave it open for the user to close, the instance of Microsoft Excel 97 may stop responding when you close the last open workbook. This behavior occurs if the Visual Basic code opened or created any documents before making the instance of Microsoft Excel 97 visible.

The following Visual Basic macro demonstrates the sequence of actions that cause the problem:

      Sub CreateMSXLObject()

          Dim xlObj As Object
          Set xlObj = CreateObject("Excel.Application")     'Action 1
          xlObj.Workbooks.Open "C:\My Documents\Test.xls"   'Action 2
          xlObj.Visible = True                              'Action 3
          Set xlObj = Nothing                               'Action 4

      End Sub