Microsoft Excel 2003 has a bug which has frustrated me for a while. I’ve submitted it as a bug, but I’ve also described it here, with pictures, since the Microsoft Office site doesn’t let you embed pictures in bug requests.

Let’s take it one step at a time, and show the bug in action. Given a folder with two files called ‘Book1′ (not Book1.xls - there’s no extension on the filename) and ‘Book1.txt’, your explorer window looks like this (click images for larger versions):

Now, in the traditional Windows fashion, double-clicking on a file which Windows cannot associate with an application, for example if it has an unrecognised file extension, or if it doesn’t have one at all, Windows presents a dialog asking the user which application they’d like to open the file in:

When you select Microsoft Office Excel 2003 and press OK, Excel pops up, as expected. But look what happens - because the file isn’t a .xls (or other Excel-associated extension) file, it’s passed the file through the text import filter - but the wrong file has been opened!:

Amusing, yet frustrating that a product which otherwise is so solid has such a simple error of logic!