Hm, yeah.

Doug, try this: Open your "Folder Options" control panel. Select the "File Types" tab. Find and click on the entry for XLS. Click on "Advanced". Click on the entry for "Open", which should be in bold. Click on "Edit". Uncheck the "Use DDE" box. In the "Application used to perform action" field, go to the end and make sure that the "%1" has double-quotes around it. If it doesn't, add them. Then OK back out of all of those windows and try opening multiple Excel docs.