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Excel 2007 Multiplication Bug

Posted by kdawson on from the be-fruitful-and-all-that dept.

tibbar66 writes with news of a serious multiplication bug in Excel 2007, which has been reported to the company. The example that first came to light is =850*77.1 — which gives a result of 100,000 instead of the correct 65,535. It seems that any formula that should evaluate to 65,535 will act strangely. One poster in the forum noted these behaviors: "Suppose the formula is in A1. =A1+1 returns 100,001, which appears to show the formula is in fact 100,000... =A1*2 returns 131,070, as if A1 had 65,535 (which it should have been). =A1*1 keeps it at 100,000. =A1-1 returns 65,534. =A1/1 is still 100,000. =A1/2 returns 32767.5."

5 of 806 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So What? by aichpvee · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I can't imagine you'd need a lot of spreadsheets at McDonald's.

    --
    The Farewell Tour II
  2. Re:Dunno... by jkrise · · Score: 0, Flamebait
    Dunno, works just fine in my copy of 2007...

    WARNING TO MODS: THIS APPEARS TO BE AN ATTEMPT AT ASTROTURFING. THE PARENT POST IS NOT, REPEAT NOT +5 INFORMATIVE. PLEASE READ THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE, AND MS-EXCEL-MVP HAS ACCEPTED THIS BUG REPORT AS TRUE, AND HE HAS REPORTED IT TO MICROSOFT AS WELL.

    Bernard Liengme View profile
              More options Sep 23, 5:46 pm

    This has now been reported to Microsoft
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    Bernard V Liengme
    Microsoft Excel MVP
    www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
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    "Molham Serry" wrote in message
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  3. Re:Microsoft just announced plans for their fix by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    No idea - the modding on this particular article seems decidedly weird... maybe there's something sinister as well. Insightful posts get modded Funny, Funny (or attempts to be funny) get modded Insightful etc.

  4. It's the only thing they can do by Chemisor · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    According to the logic of Quantum Mechanics, if a function is discontinuous, then it's just the way the universe works, and the numbers inside the break are declared "forbidden". Remember, kids, searching for causes is heresy! We can't ever really know how things "really are" and it is pointless to ask the question, so fire up your probability calculations and resign to the fact that answers between 65535 and 100000 must forever remain undetermined.

  5. Re:Microsoft just announced plans for their fix by evil_Tak · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Why is it that we have to wait for FF3 (or worse, run the unstable CVS copy) I think you just answered it right there.
    There are a lot of things involved in a release; they're not going to do a code freeze, strings freeze, etc., every time they fix a bug that annoys somebody. If you really want it now, you're perfectly able to get the fix from CVS and backport it to your copy.