Locked for editing?

[cmlm]

I created a spreadsheet which I use every day.
This morning when trying to open it from the hard drive, I got the following message: "Name.xls is locked for editing."
When I click on "Read Only" or "Notify" to try and open it as they suggest, I get the following message: " The program has performed an ilegal operation and will be shut down.
Neither rebooting or checking for viruses helped. I use Excel 2000 and Windows 98.
Could anyone please help. Thanks in advance.

[WREFORDT]

You'll probably get a more informed response from the smart people here. If you don't, then try opening the file with the openoffice.org spreadsheet software(it's free) then save it back as a .xls file. It seems to get rid of a lot of bugs in old files.

[cmlm]

Thanks for the reply, I will try this as soon as i'm back at the office in the morning.

[cmlm]

I downloaded the program openoffice.org and tried opening my Excel Spreadsheet, but because the sheet is password protected could not manage to open it.
The program tries to open the spreadsheet without giving me the option to fill in my password, then gives me the message :" Was unable to open because the program is password protected".
Am I doing something wrong?.

Thanks for the help.

[WREFORDT]

hmm. I'm not to sure, you could check this out though:

http://lastbit.com/excel/
http://lastbit.com/mp/support.asp

[cmlm]

Thanks for sending me to lastbit.com, I added it to my favorites. Unfortunately no help for me there at this stage as they only seem to concentrate on lost passwords, I know mine but the program just quits for some reason. Saying it has performed an illegal operation.