Excel macros are a powerful tool for automating repetitive tasks and streamlining your workflow. However, sometimes you may need to find other instances of Excel that are running on your computer. This can be useful if you need to interact with another Excel workbook or if you want to close all instances of Excel before running your macro.
Using VBA to Find Other Instances of Excel
One way to find other instances of Excel is to use VBA code. The following code will loop through all running processes on your computer and check if the process name is “EXCEL.EXE”. If it is, the code will add the process ID to an array.
Dim xlApp As Excel.Application
Dim xlBook As Excel.Workbook
Dim xlBooks As Excel.Workbooks
Dim xlProcessIDs() As Long
Dim i As Long
ReDim xlProcessIDs(0)
For Each proc In GetObject(“winmgmts:”). _
ExecQuery(“select * from Win32_Process where name=’EXCEL.EXE'”)
ReDim Preserve xlProcessIDs(i)
xlProcessIDs(i) = proc.ProcessID
i = i + 1
Next proc
Once you have the process IDs of all running instances of Excel, you can use them to interact with other workbooks or close all instances of Excel. For example, the following code will activate the first workbook in the second instance of Excel:
Set xlApp = GetObject(, “Excel.Application.2”)
Set xlBooks = xlApp.Workbooks
Set xlBook = xlBooks(1)
xlBook.Activate
Using Task Manager to Find Other Instances of Excel
If you don’t want to use VBA, you can also use Task Manager to find other instances of Excel. To do this, open Task Manager by pressing Ctrl+Shift+Esc. Then, click on the “Details” tab and look for any processes named “EXCEL.EXE”.
If you want to close all instances of Excel, you can right-click on each process and select “End task”. Alternatively, you can select all Excel processes by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on each process, and then click the “End task” button.
Conclusion
Finding other instances of Excel can be useful when working with multiple workbooks or when you need to close all instances of Excel before running a macro. Whether you use VBA or Task Manager, it’s important to be aware of all running instances of Excel on your computer.
