Excel Versions: Excel 5.0 to 7.0

We started discussing about Excel 1.0 through Excel 4.0 in earlier post. Here is brief about Excel 5.0 to Excel 7.0

Excel 5.0

Released in 1993, Excel 5.0 was the first Excel version and office application to include Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), also called as Macro language. We will have series of posts on VBA in future but to touch base shortly, VBA is a programming language based on Visual Basic to add ability to automate tasks in excel and also create user defined functions. You can also record you actions that Excel saves as a code which can be used multiple times to automate simple tasks. However addition of VBA in Excel made it target for macro viruses. Antivirus applications started detecting these viruses and alerted users. Microsoft later came up with steps to prevent misuse by adding option to disable macros completely and enable trusted macros etc.

Excel 5.0 was the first spreadsheet to support multiple worksheets with in a single workbook.

Excel 5.0 contains an easter egg called ‘dot matrix credit display’. I don’t suppose anyone of us is using Excel 5.0 version now (Microsoft stopped support to this version very long back) but if you do have access to it, below are the steps to reach to the easter egg. 

1. Begin with a new (blank) worksheet displaying the standard toolbar. 
2. Right click on the toolbar. 
3. Choose CUSTOMIZE. 
4. Under CATAGORIES, scroll down to CUSTOM. 
5. Click and drag the solitaire (deck of cards) icon to the toolbar. 
6. When the ASSIGN MACRO box comes up, click OK. 
7. Close the CUSTOMIZE box. 
8. Press and hold CTRL-ALT-SHIFT, then left click on the solitaire icon. 

Excel 6.0

There was no version 6 of Excel. The version numbers jumped directly from 5 to 7 in order to bring all Office applications into a consistent version numbering system.

Excel 7.0 (Excel 95)

Excel 7.0 (Excel 95, we will use these two names interchangeably) was released with Windows 95 and as a part of Microsoft Office 95 version. This was the first time all major Office products like Word, Excel, PowerPoint has the same version number. This was the first version of Excel to use full 32-bit code. While this represented an improvement in the internal workings of Excel, it doesn't change the user's experience. Microsoft discontinued support for Office 95 programs in 2001/02.

Excel 7.0 has an impressive game (Easter egg) named 'Hall of Tortured Souls'. If you have access to excel 95, follow below steps to get to this game.Open Excel 95 with a blank work sheet 

1. Go down to the 95th row 
2. Select the whole row 
3. Tab over to column B 
4. Go to Help/About 
5. Hold down ctrl-alt-shift and click on the tech support button 
6. A window appears called 'Hall of Tortured Souls' 
7. At the end of the hall and all the programmers names do a 180 turn and type 'excelkfa' without quotes. 
8. Walk-through the wall and see the pictures.

We shall talk about next versions of Excel in later posts. Click here for Excel 8.0 to Excel 11.0.