XL97: Page Fault Occurs After Filling Formatting and Saving

• Microsoft Excel 97 for Windows

SYMPTOMS

If you drag the fill handle (the small black square in the corner of the selection) down a range of cells in Microsoft Excel, and then save the workbook, you may receive the following error message:

   This program has performed an illegal operation and will be shut down.
   If the problem persists, contact the program vendor.

   EXCEL caused an invalid page fault in module <unknown> at
   0000:0000086c.

CAUSE

This problem occurs if all of the following conditions are true:

• You apply a conditional format to a single cell.

  NOTE: A conditional format is a format that Microsoft Excel automatically applies if the specified condition is true.

      -and-
  

• You select the cell with the conditional format and the cell that is immediately below it.

      -and-
  

• You click the fill handle and drag it down a large number of rows.

      -and-
  

• You then save the file.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. We are researching this problem and will post new information here in the Microsoft Knowledge Base as it becomes available.

MORE INFORMATION

When you fill a range in which one of the two originally selected cells has formatting and the other does not, the formatting alternates between rows in the range you filled. Given this scenario, every other row, beginning with the first row in the selection, uses conditional formatting; the other rows do not use conditional formatting.

REFERENCES

For more information about conditional formatting, click the Index tab in Microsoft Excel Help, type the following text

   conditional