OFF2000: Clicking Button on Office Shortcut Bar Starts a New Session

When you click a button for a program on the Microsoft Office Shortcut Bar, instead of switching to the currently running instance of the program, a new instance of the program is started.

This problem occurs on a computer that is running Microsoft Windows 98 or Microsoft Windows NT 4.0.

This problem does not occur in Microsoft Windows 95.

To work around this problem, instead of using the Office Shortcut Bar, use either of the following methods:

• Click the button on the taskbar for the program to which you want to switch.
  
  -or-
• Hold down ALT, and then press the TAB key repeatedly, until the icon for the program to which you want to switch is selected. Then, release ALT.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

Normally, when you click a button for a program on the Office Shortcut Bar (OSB), the OSB checks to see whether an instance of the program is already running. If so, that instance of the program is activated; if not, a new instance of the program is started.

However, this functionality does not work under Windows 98 or Windows NT 4.0. Instead of checking for an instance of the program that is running, the OSB automatically starts another instance of the program. This prevents you from using the Office Shortcut Bar to switch between programs.