If the response does not arrive in the default time threshold, Excel will trigger the following warning to the end user: ‘Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action’Īlthough the error message is always the same, there is actually a couple of fairly common scenario that will trigger this particular error in Microsoft Excel: If Excel issues a communication request to another application (let’s say Word), it does it using the OLE object and then waits for the response from the application. We even managed to replicate the issue on one of our testing machines. We investigated this particular issue by looking at various user reports and looking at the official Microsoft documentation. What is causing the ‘Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action’ error?
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The issue is reported to occur on all the recent Windows versions including Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10) Microsoft Excel is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action What is an OLE action?Īn Object Linking & Embedding (OLE) action is essentially a mechanism designed to help various Office applications (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Sharepoint) to communicate with other applications in order to complete an operation successfully. This infographic takes a closer look at the history of Excel, circa 1978-2013.Several Office users report getting the “Microsoft is waiting for another application to complete an OLE action” error when trying to run a VBA script or when trying to run Excel from a BI launch pad. The Infographic on History of Microsoft Excel: And this thing provoked Microsoft to come up with Microsoft Excel and rest is history. This made Lotus 1-2-3 a new favourite in the industry.Īlthough, before this in 1982 Microsoft had already launched Muliplan but it was outshined by Lotus 1-2-3.
Mitch and his team power packed Lotus 1-2-3 with charting, graphing and rudimentary database capabilities along with the basic arithmetic. Note: You can still get an original copy of Visicalc from Dan Bricklin’s website: What followed VisiCalc?Īfter the phenomenal success of VisiCalc, a team headed by Mitch Kapor in 1983, developed a new spreadsheet program called Lotus 1-2-3. VisiCalc was an instant success and the duo were able to sell around 1 million copies of the program. Frankston made the program fast and with better arithmetic. To make VisiCalc more powerful Bricklin hired Bob Frankston, who is also known as the co-creator of VisiCalc. It could only calculate data within a matrix of 5 columns by 20 rows. It was a relatively small program with few basic capabilities. In 1978, Harvard Business School student Dan Bricklin developed a program called VisiCalc. Later in November 1987, the first Windows version was released. This thing motivated Microsoft to develop another spreadsheet product Excel.The first version of Excel was released in 1985 for Mac. Muliplan was very popular on CP/M systems, but on MS-DOS systems it lost fame to Lotus 1-2-3. The key difference between Multiplan and its competitors was Microsoft's decision to use R1C1 addressing instead of the A1 addressing which was introduced by VisiCalc. It was introduced in 1982 as a competitor for VisiCalc (the first ever electronic spreadsheet program). Muliplan was Microsoft’s first electronic spreadsheet program. While the origin of electronic spreadsheets can be traced back to 1978, but it wasn’t until 1982 when Microsoft jumped into the arena of Electronic spreadsheets with a product known as MultiPlan.
In today’s post, we will go back in time to trace the origin of Excel. Have you ever thought how Excel or the other electronic spreadsheet softwares came to existence? How long have you been using Microsoft Excel?