Upgrading Personal.xls to Excel 2007

Billy's boss is getting a new PC, and he is responsible to get the system set up for her. Her old PC has Excel 2000, but the new system will have Excel 2007. He needs to get her old Personal.xls to the new PC, as it has all her macros in it. Billy wonders if he can just copy and paste Personal.xls from the old system to the new one.

The short answer is "probably not." Excel 2007 uses a new file format based on XML—in fact, Excel 2007 doesn't even use a file called Personal.xls, but Personal.xlsb. It is best to have your Personal.xls file in this new format. That doesn't mean that you can't get the old information to the new system, however. The way you do that is to follow these general steps:

1. Copy the old Personal.xls file to the new system.
2. Rename it something else, such as OldPersonal.xls.
3. On the new system, start Excel and open the Excel 2007 Personal.xlsb file.
4. Open the OldPersonal.xls file.
5. Copy the macros from the old file to the new one.
6. Save the new Personal.xlsb file.

That should be it—your macros will be on the new system.