How to close hidden Excel instances?

Thank you Leith!
that's some awesome piece of code you made
next time my computer is crowded with loose excel instances I'll give it a shot, it certainly must do the trick!

Originally Posted by Leith Ross

Hello bagullo,

This macro will close all other separate instances of Excel (hidden or visible) that are running. Only the instance that contains the macro will remain running.

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Adding the Macro

1. Copy the macro above pressing the keys CTRL+C
2. Open your workbook
3. Press the keys ALT+F11 to open the Visual Basic Editor
4. Press the keys ALT+I to activate the Insert menu
5. Press M to insert a Standard Module
6. Paste the code by pressing the keys CTRL+V
   
7. Make any custom changes to the macro if needed at this time.
8. Save the Macro by pressing the keys CTRL+S
9. Press the keys ALT+Q to exit the Editor, and return to Excel.

To Run the Macro...
To run the macro from Excel, open the workbook, and press ALT+F8 to display the Run Macro Dialog. Double Click the macro's name to Run it.

tried it out and works like a charm!

thnks!

Hi Leith,

just a small question...

would it be possible to close those hidden workbooks as "savechanges:=false" so that everything happens behind the scenes?

sometimes users have told me they feel very confused when excel asks if they want to save chaneges of files they did not open, neither see on their screen.

I tried to do it myself, but your code is way beyond what I can handle!

thanks!!

hi roy,
actually I use that to be able to open other excel workbooks without macros enabled. That makes reading their data much quicker. Plus, I can show user progress, without having them to stare a static screen throughout the process

Originally Posted by snb

Did you ever try opening a workbook like this ? ( in the same Excel instance).

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Nope, never tried, is it better than workbook open? does it open without macros?
how to you store that in a workbook variable?

And the simplest method I know to close all Excel instances except the one that is triggering this procedure is:

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did not know this way of closing workbooks -- does this work as welll for separate excel applications? I'll keep it in mind.

I just wanted to clarify what I was answering to -- no more quoting, sorry.

as I mentioned sometimes is necessary to open files which have macros that run on workbook open, and that causes problems sometimes. The files used for reference do not even show on the taskbar and open without macros so it's a satisfactory solution so far. I just wanted to see if it was possible to modify the closeworkbook sub so that does not confirm for saving changes.

I like storing workbooks in variables, so that if it's necessary to change workbook name I do not have to look through the code. but I guess I could to as you mention and put
set wb = workbooks(filename)
somewhere and modify it there if necessary.

thanks for your time!

Bernat