Opening multiple files in Word 2000

[Ziz]

Fresh install of Office 2000, recovering after a HD crash a few weeks ago. Win98 First Ed, no service packs installed for either one yet.

When I fire up Word2000 and try to open two or more files, a whole new session of Word opens, rather than opening the file in the existing session. I don't remember it doing this on my old system, but unfortunately I can't go back to the old machine to check because I used parts from it for the new machine. Looked through Tools/Options and Tools/Customize and couldn't find anything on this.

[medo]

Hello,

I had a similar problem with Excel and to prevent it to open existing files, I had to change default document folder (Tools – Options – File locations).
Hopes it help.

Medo

:)

[Ziz]

Yeah, I know about that setting/control, but what do you change it from/to? Right now, mine is set to C:\My Documents, but the files I'm trying to open are in sub-directories within the My Documents folder. Could that be the problem?

[Mr.Goodbytes]

Yeah, I noticed Office 2000 did that too. I just kinda accepted it as the norm. I was used to Office 95 and 97 where if you had more than one document open, to switch between them, you would just look under "Window" in the menu bar. I'm wondering if MS did it so it would be easier for the average joe to switch between documents. At first I had thought that MS was launching a new process of Word each time it made a new window for each new document, but a simple check in the task manager in Win2k proved that theory wrong. Woulda been a good idea though. That way if one document you were working on locked up, it wouldn't take the others out with it. As far as reversing what MS has done, I don't know if you can, but I'm sure someone else might be able to confirm or deny it. I'll be interested to find out, because I don't like my taskbar getting cluttered with umpteen million windows.

[Ziz]

Ok, so it's not a second session of Word, it just looks like it on the task bar? That at least explains it, even if it doesn't make sense.

So, anyone got a crack for this? A registry hack or something?

[club_med]

The same happens by me here at the office (NT4 & Word 97), but to tell you the truth I prefer it that way.

I can flip between windows easily.