Mutiple instances of Excel

[Frinck]

Hi all,

I've been trying (without success) to run two workbooks, each in a separate instance of Excel, with one single instance of BA. I expected BA to show both workbooks in the drop-down list within the Log Current Prices pop-up window, but unfortunately it only shows the workbook in the first instance of Excel.

The reason I'm trying this is because workbook A is processing-intensive, and if workbook B is running with it in the same Excel, event triggers in workbook B are often missed.

Is this the way BA is designed to work? Is it possible for BA to 'see' workbooks in two difference instances of Excel?

Merry Christmas to everyone

[milfor]

Don't open a second excel workbook separately but with File/Open from the first excel workbook.

[Frinck]

I would do that (and have tried) but this doesn't work for what I'm doing. This is because my first workbook fires off complex, time consuming worksheet change events which result in workbook B's worksheet change events being missed (I set Application.EnableEvents to false at the beginning)...

[PeteB]

Could you put Application.DoEvents at suitable intervals in the time-consuming code?

[Frinck]

Thanks PeteB, I already do that once whilst waiting for the most intentsive code to finish, but will think about how I can use it more.

The important thing is for workbook B not to miss any events. I rely on this big-time, so even with extra DoEvents in workbook A, I suppose there might be times when events are missed in workbook B.

It's proving a bit of a conundrum for me as I'm trying to avoid the need to run these workbooks on separate PCs.

[hughsiepops]

Just a thought, but have you looked at using some of the free virtualisation software that is knocking about.?
Once you have set it up, you could then have the two seperate instances of Excel you require without having the workbooks on two physically seperate PCs.
Not tried it myself but would be interested to hear from anyone that has ..

[Steve Voltage]

I open three workbooks with no problems.

[dermag]

Hi Frinck,

Is there any way you can speed the 'intensive' code up? I ask because I don't know how/what/where you are in terms of vba skills, but there are various ways to do almost everything in excel/vba, and not all of them are quick and/or efficient. In fact some are a downright drag.

Using for/next loops to find values versus using the "find" method is painfully slow.

Actualy selecting cells during your code is not needed and will speed the code up no end, you do not need to physically select anything.

I'm assuming you are running workshet event code but I could be wrong. There's lots of guys on here with good if not expert vba skills and if you elaborate on the problem will be only too glad to help out.

I speak from experience here, as I used to run bits of code that took for ever and looking back on things now, my code was quite comical.

An example of my code that runs ultra fast is I web query the full days uk greyhound results and I insert "W" next to the winner of all the races I've recorded earlier in the day. I have these races in rows 20 to 300 and spread accross 7 or 8 worksheets so there's a lot of space and dogs names to check. This code runs in a fraction of a second using the "find" method. If I tried to go with for/next loops looking to match the dog name with the winner it would takes a good few minutes.