More power to you!

This is accomplished by using VBA to set an Excel Application flag “IgnoreRemoteRequests” to True or False. This flag can also be set manually in Tools–>Options (General Tab)–>”Ignore Other Applications”

“IgnoreRemoteRequests” is an APPLICATION flag which means it alters the functionality of your copy of Excel. It is not a workbook flag and therefore is not saved with the workbook. The state of all application flags are only saved upon exit of Excel, and the last instance closed will overwrite all flag settings of the previously closed instance. The settings of any already open instances of Excel will not be “seen” by opening another instance. Also, this setting will be for your installed copy of Excel only. Sending someone one of your workbooks will not change their Excel settings (unless your workbook contains the VBA that changes the settings.) *

*Note: our workstations have local copies of Excel installed. I don’t know how application settings are saved in a shared environment.

It can get confusing. Say you have no copies of Excel open and the current state of Ignore=No. You open a workbook containing the VBA subs which set Ignore=Yes. (You can see the “Ignore” box checked in the options menu, General tab.)

You Dbl-click another workbook, one that does not have the VBA subs. It will open in a new instance of Excel because the first one open is now ignoring open requests. But, if you look in the options menu you will see the second Excel is not ignoring requests. If you Dbl-Click a third workbook it will open in the second instance of Excel, not in a new instance and not in the first one.

You decide to close both Excel instances. Whichever instance you close last will be the settings used the next time Excel opens. This is REGARDLESS of whether or not you save any workbook changes — remember, this is an application flag not a workbook flag.

If you close the first instance last the Ignore flag will still be set to True. This can be a problem. The next time you Dbl-Click an .xls file, or attempt to open an Excel mail attachment, etc. you will only see an empty blue window. Excel is ignoring the open request!

This event can be a surprise. It appears as if Excel is “broken.” Not to worry, simply use File–>Open to open your workbook, then go to the Options menu and uncheck the “Ignore Other Applications” box.

To automatically prevent this situation from happening, if you turn on the “Ignore” flag upon starting Excel it is imperative that you turn it off before exit. Here are the subs that accomplish these tasks:

‘ (put in ThisWorkbook module)

Private Sub Workbook_BeforeClose(Cancel As Boolean)
‘
ExposeExcel
‘
End Sub

Private Sub Workbook_Open()
‘
IsolateExcel
‘
End Sub

‘ (put these in Module1)

Global Const Yes As Boolean = True
Global Const No As Boolean = False

Public Sub ExposeExcel()
‘
‘ accept remote requests (double-clicking a workbook file will now open in this
‘ instance of Excel instead of starting a new instance)
‘
Application.DisplayAlerts = No
Application.IgnoreRemoteRequests = No
Application.DisplayAlerts = Yes
‘
End Sub

Public Sub IsolateExcel()
‘
‘ ignore remote requests (double-clicking a workbook file will now start a new
‘ instance of Excel instead of opening in this instance)
‘
Application.DisplayAlerts = No
Application.IgnoreRemoteRequests = Yes
Application.DisplayAlerts = Yes
‘
End Sub

Note: if ever you are debugging or working in Excel and your VBA subs stop due to an error, (or you set Application.EnableEvents = No while in development phase) it is possible the ExposeExcel sub will not run on exit. You will know the next time you Dbl-Click an .xls file and Excel comes up blank! Simply do File–>Open as described above.

Once you get the Excel files to open as separate instances (and hence on different screens) you may run into problem copying/moving worksheets between different workbooks (files) because worksheets don’t copy/move across instances.

The way to get around it is to pick an instance of Excel, use “File -> Open” or drag and drop the file icon to have multiple workbooks opened in the same Excel instance. Of course you can’t put the workbooks in the same instance on different monitors (back to the original setting). So, do it only when you want to copy/move entire worksheets between files.