i really can’t figure out your are talking about this issue in 2006, but curruntly on 2010 i’m just experiencing excel 2010 and I really faced bad luck as i’ve made considerably above 100 handrad lines code and saved it in xlsx and it’s wiped.

any idea if i can retreive my code?
it would really great

There is a big important customer base that Kevin refers to as “Our financial customers”. I bet they have a lot to say on how this is going to be. They (at least all the ones I know peraonally (except Stephen of course)) wouldn’t dream of visiting Excel blogs or newsgroups, and they don’t know how to get rid of macros or bogus macro warnings. It’s more like a “have anyone seen my python snake lately?” feel to it. So I guess an automatical code removal system is desireable for a lot of important people, no matter how silly the idea of code free Excel files is.

Best wishes Harald

“This workbook has macros. Do you wish to CHANGE the file format to allow macros to be saved?”
then Yes – to change the file to xlsm, no to save as is without macros or cancel to then go back and pick the save as dialog and make my own choice of all the other file formats.

Then you still only have one version of the file – now it’s an xlsm not an xlsx – with your macros in. Given the huge number of people that I still see who wouldn’t know a file extension if it bit them on the nose that will be seamless to inexperienced users.

And I’d definately go with the default should be to save your macros not lose them – you can always get rid of them again if you didn’t mean it – if the default is to lose them then you’ve lost your work with no way to get it back!

Regards

Stephen

Thanks for the insight.

When a user records a macro, it goes into Module1. When he records another, it goes into Module1. Now she opens the VBE, edits the code and writes a few more subs, then close the VBE. Then she records another macro, this goes to a new Module2. Excel knows that Module1 is edited by hand, it is Dirty.

My experience is that recordings are quick fixes and disposable most of the time, while “real, written code” is valuable. So now that I know Excel knows real code from recordings, and of course spot the presence of userforms and class modules, I’d like the defaults to behave different depending on that. Make a qualified guess, it is probably pretty easy. Or even better, make “qualified guess” one of the saveas options.

The dialog should be at least as clear as it is if you actually are going to lose the code, maybe it deserves a Warning icon instead. Would it be possible to export the VB project to an external file, or ask “Do you want to export the VB project to a separate file?” after saving as xlsx ?

Best wishes Harald

Thats beacuase VBA(XLA) is not secure enough….if it was … developeres probably wouldnt be shifting to COM Add-ins….. Ask the Bastien(ASAP) ….he just shifted from XLA to Com…partially…

….May be PUP7 will be COM instead of XLA as well….John ?

…but then if it did become secure….MS would have a couple of products(or shall we say technologies) less to sell…

Sam

Also my other example. Open an .xlsx file, then make changes to it including adding VBA. Now Save (not Save As). Only the dialog in the original blog article appears. No dialog appears that allows changing the file type. Go ahead and save it as an .xlsx file. The VBA code still exists in the workbook while it remains open. Now close the workbook. Excel doesn’t display any dialog. All VBA code gone.

Now open a .csv file, add VBA code to it. Save (not Save As). Excel displays a similar dialog. Save the file as a .csv file. Again, the VBA is still in the workbook while it remains in memory. Now close the workbook. Excel displays another set of dialogs. If Excel is smart enough always to prompt when closing .csv files, why can’t it always prompt when saving .xlsx files that contain VBA code? I understand that the .csv dialogs appear for different reasons (they could lose worksheet content), but I’m intentionally playing devil’s advocate.

Then there’s the example of how Excel 2007 handles Excel 2/3/4 .xls files. Upon an attempt to save, Excel displays a 1-button dialog stating that it can’t save the file in its current format. Click the button, and Excel displays the Save As dialog. Wouldn’t that be a better procedure for saving .xlsx files that have VBA code? That’d cut down your current, marginally crowded 3-button dialog to a 1-button dialog – what could be simpler? And following up immediately with a Save As dialog would be too confusing for users who’ve added VBA code?

If Excel must force the user to create multiple files explicitly so Microsoft can cover its collective backsides over & beyond the various disclaimers in the EULA, why not a different tack: don’t allow VBA to be added to any files other than .xls(5/95 and/or 97-2003)/.xlsm/.xlsb? Make users save files as .xls, .xlsm or .xlsb formats before allowing them to add VBA. That’d be an improvement. Further, when they do try to add VBA code to an .xlsx file, that’s the time when Excel should display a Save As dialog.

There are many different ways to handle this. IMO, Microsoft has chosen one of the worst.