MicrosoftВ® Office ExcelВ® 2007 Inside Out (Inside Out (Microsoft))

In the past, "crash recovery" largely involved an initial flurry of expletives followed by a brisk walk around the office and perhaps a couple of aspirin. Office Excel 2007 provides something beyond comfort and sympathy for digital mishaps-an actual mechanism that attempts to tuck away open files before the program comes screeching to a halt. And it works pretty well. If Excel encounters a problem, it attempts to save any files that were open at the time the problem occurred, before bad things happen to them when the program crashes and burns.

Using AutoRecover

Although Excel has greatly improved its ability to recover lost work after a crash, you should take advantage of the additional insurance provided by the AutoRecover feature.

AutoRecover is turned on by default. To turn it off, click the Microsoft Office Button, click the Excel Options button, select the Save category, and clear the Save AutoRecover Information Every check box, as shown in Figure 2-46.

Figure 2-46: With AutoRecover, you can specify how often Excel will automatically save your work.

The AutoRecover File Location is set to a subfolder buried deep in your hard disk-this is OK, because you'll want to save the real files elsewhere rather than clutter up your working directories with recovery files. If you want, you can easily change the location. You can also choose to disable AutoRecover for specific workbooks without having to turn it off and on manually. You can use the AutoRecover Exceptions For area in the dialog box to do this. Just select a workbook in which you want AutoRecover disabled from the drop-down list displaying all the currently open workbooks, and select the Disable AutoRecover For This Workbook Only check box. You can do this separately for any open workbook.

Calling Dr. Office

Excel does its best to recover any unsaved files after a crash, and it is pretty effective. As for other issues relating to the health and well-being of your 2007 Microsoft Office installation, it's possible that other forces are at work, polluting the virtual environment. If weird and wacky things continue to happen while working in any 2007 Microsoft Office program, get a professional opinion from Dr. Office-the Microsoft Office Diagnostics program. Before you start, you'll need to be connected to the Internet, and it's always best to close other running programs first (if you can!). Then click the Windows Start button, click All Programs, click Microsoft Office, click Microsoft Office Tools, and click Microsoft Office Diagnostics. The Microsoft Office Diagnostics dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 2-47.

Figure 2-47: The Microsoft Office Diagnostics dialog box gives you a chance to get your ailing Office installation back in shape.

The Microsoft Office Diagnostics program examines a number of things; for example, it looks for whether any programs need to be updated, looks for "known solutions," inspects your computer's memory and hard disk, examines the Setup files, and looks for evidence of compatibility issues with any other installed versions of 2007 Microsoft Office programs.

Office Diagnostics replaces (and represents an upgrade from) the Detect And Repair feature in Excel 2003.

We encourage you to use Excel documentation, online Help, the Microsoft Excel Web site (www.microsoft.com/excel/), and especially this book to find answers to your questions before you reach for the telephone. When you have exhausted these resources, it's time to call Microsoft Product Support Services. But before you do, click the Microsoft Office Button, click Excel Options, select the Resources category, click the About button, and click the System Info button. Doing so displays a dialog box that lists your current system configuration, the applications running, some display information, and much more:

If you want, you can print the information in a report or save it as a file on disk. Then you can click Tech Support in the About Microsoft Excel dialog box to display a dialog box with information about contacting Product Support Services around the world. When you talk to Product Support Services, having the System Info report at your fingertips will assist the representative in diagnosing your problem and will save you time.