When I was using excel 2007 and would refresh external data (an sql query to a database), while it was running I could work on other sheets and workbooks.

Now that I am using 2010 when I refresh, that worksheet and any other workbooks become unusable while the query/refresh is running. I can't select other sheets or use other workbooks and if I try the excel's title bar says (not responding) and everything is grayed out. I verified that "enable background refresh" is checked for the connection of that query. I even did a ?activecell.QueryTable.BackgroundQuery in the vba immediate widow to verify it was "true". I even unchecked it to see what it does (it does the same thing) and re-checked it with no success.

How do I get back to being able to work on excel while a refresh/query is running?