Tamar,

There weren't any dangling references.. but adding this tweak after the scan makes it work.

lcX = loRow.Columns( 1 ).Value && force Excel to leave the last editted cell

I've noticed in this version of Excel if I've started typing into a cell and haven't "committed" the edit to the cell Excel goes into a pretty non-responsive state, ie doesn't acknowledge clicks to other places etc.

>I wonder if there's an issue with Excel still holding a lock on the file in some way. I haven't run into this so much with Excel, but I've had a number of cases with Word where I can't do what I want with a file because Word's still holding onto it.