Do Not Modify WIN.INI With Excel

 Last reviewed: October 31, 1994
Article ID: Q27091
The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Excel for Windows, versions 2.x, 3.0, 4.0

Summary:

The WIN.INI is a file used to store configuration information about Windows. Windows will cease to function correctly if Excel is used to edit this file. Symptoms may include:

  • Fonts displaying and printing incorrectly
  • Windows applications unable to print
  • OLE-aware applications unable to use OLE
  • 'Random' system crashes

More Information:

Excel reads text files correctly; however, when they are saved to disk, Excel puts quotation marks around any line with a comma in it, and puts quotation marks around any quotation marks that are already in the line.

Workaround

To correct this problem, reinstall Windows (or the run-time version of Windows 2.x if you are using run-time Windows).

If changes need to be made to the WIN.INI, a word or text processor (such as Notepad) should be used, not Excel.

KBCategory: kbother
KBSubcategory:

Additional reference words: 2.0 2.00 2.01 2.1 2.10 3.0 3.00 4.00 4.0

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Last reviewed: October 31, 1994
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