Excel 2010 Win7 Open Multiple Windows

I was searching for a way to open multiple windows in Excel every time I double clicked on an Xls or Xlsx file. I looked and found some solutions for 2007 and prior versions however I did not find any solutions for the Win7 Excel 2010 environment.

(I did find a way to do it by changing a fix for Win7 Excel 2007. Please let me know if it helps or if there is a different/better way to fix.)

Works for
Excel 2010 & Win7 (could work for 07 not tested)
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Open Registry Editor ver 6.1

-Go to Branch:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\command

(Note: it doesn't matter what is listed under default)

-Change the value command and under data remove /dde (or /e) and add after existing string the following code below

/p "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\Office14\EXCEL.EXE" /e "%1"

(Note: /p switch will ignore the (default) open settings)

-Go to Branch:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec

-Rename ddeexec2

(compare to screen shot)
Excel 2010 Win7 Registry.jpg

Hope that helps users with Win7 Excel 2010.
-Kenton

-Similar solution to above as a .reg file: Copy the following into a .txt file, then rename as a .reg file and save. Run as an administrator. You will need to replace the <Hexidecimal value> with the value specific to your install. Easy way to do that is to export your current key value.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Office\\Office14\\EXCEL.EXE\" /e \"%1\""
"command"=hex(7):<Hexidecimal value>

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec]
@="[open(\"%1\")]"

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec\application]
@="Excel"

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec\topic]
@="system"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec2]
@="[open(\"%1\")]"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec2\application]
@="Excel"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.12\shell\Open\ddeexec2\topic]
@="system"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\command]
@="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft Office\\Office14\\EXCEL.EXE\" /e \"%1\""
"command"=hex(7):<Hexidecimal value>

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec]
@="[open(\"%1\")]"

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec\application]
@="Excel"

[-HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec\topic]
@="system"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec2]
@="[open(\"%1\")]"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec2\application]
@="Excel"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Excel.Sheet.8\shell\Open\ddeexec2\topic]
@="system"

kentonj123 said:

I was searching for a way to open multiple windows in Excel every time I double clicked on an Xls or Xlsx file. ...
-Kenton

I'm curious, why would you want to open multiple windows whenever you double-click on an xls/xlsx file?