J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

Too Easy To Lose Your Macros

One really annoying feature of Excel 2007 is this dialog box:

If you haven't changed the default file format from XLSX, you'll see this dialog box when you save a workbook that contains macros. Note that the default button is Yes. Someone who's not paying attention can simply hit Enter and then close the workbook. When the workbook is re-opened, the macros are gone. The default behavior of a dialog box should never result in losing data.

Furthermore, the blue "information" icon should actually be a red "critical" icon.

All in all, this dialog box is very confusing. To do something positive (i.e., save your work), you must click No. To do something negative (destroy your macros), you must click Yes.

One thing that Microsoft did correctly is to continue to display this confusing dialog box every time the workbook is saved. In other words, they give you multiple opportunities to not destroy your macros. Unless, of course, you close the workbook after clicking Yes.