Written by Allen Wyatt (last updated February 23, 2019)
This tip applies to Excel 97, 2000, 2002, and 2003
Subscriber Raymond Kamanga wrote recently to describe a problem he was having with one of his Excel configuration settings. He likes to have different workbooks visible as tasks on the Taskbar, a configuration that is controlled on the View tab of the Options dialog box. When he sets the option, the next time he starts Excel, the option is cleared, and he has to set it all over again.
Many of the settings in Excel (even many of those in the Options dialog box) are stored on a workbook-by-workbook basis. Some of them change with every workbook you load; some of them change based on the first workbook you load each session.
There is a good chance that the Windows in Taskbar option (on the View tab) is one of these latter types. When you start Excel, it probably loads a workbook to display to you. This workbook could be a default workbook (from Excel's Startup folder), or it could be the Personal.xls workbook. If the Windows in Taskbar option is turned off in one of these (whichever is loading first), then each Excel session will start with the option off.
The solution is to figure out which workbook is being opened when you first start Excel. Then, load that workbook, change the setting, save it again, and restart Excel. The problem should not recur.
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