This is a continuation of yesterday’s Excel incident.
If you haven’t read Day 1, you can read it here:
Excel, Apparently: It was supposed to be just a search.
I ended yesterday by deciding to leave the computer running overnight.
The Excel operation had been going for more than two hours, and although Task Manager still showed signs of activity, I had no idea whether Excel was actually making progress or simply spending CPU time doing something mysterious.
So I decided to let it run.
All night.
Surely, after another twelve hours or so, I would finally know what happened.
Or so I thought.
The result
I arrived at work. I looked at the computer.
And Excel wasn’t there.
Not because Excel had finished.
Not because Excel had finally crashed.
Not because Excel had recovered.
Because Windows had restarted the computer.
Yes.
After spending more than two hours waiting for Excel to decide what to do with my accidental paste, I had made the perfectly reasonable decision to leave it running overnight.
And Microsoft Windows apparently had a different plan.
Windows Update.
My carefully constructed overnight experiment was over.
Excel never got the opportunity to tell me whether it would eventually finish.
I didn’t even get to find out whether those suspiciously changing Task Manager numbers had meant anything.
Instead, sometime during the night, another Microsoft product had walked into the situation and effectively said:
“Don’t worry. I’ll take it from here.”
And Windows did.
The experiment I never got to perform
This is where the story became even more amusing.
The whole point of leaving Excel running overnight was to answer a very simple question:
Would Excel eventually finish?
After more than two hours, I had reached the point where I genuinely didn’t know.
Task Manager suggested that Excel was still doing something.
But there was no way to know whether it was progressing toward completion or simply spending CPU time on some internal operation that might never finish.
So I decided:
Fine. Let it run all night.
That would give Excel another twelve or so hours.
Surely that would settle the question.
Instead, I got a completely different answer:
You don’t get to know.
Because Windows restarted the machine.
Microsoft Excel vs. Microsoft Windows
At this point, the story stopped being about Excel.
It became a story about the larger Microsoft ecosystem.
Excel had spent hours not responding.
Windows had watched this entire situation and apparently decided:
“You know what would help?”
A reboot.
Excel:
“I’m still processing something.”
Windows:
“Excellent. Restart.”
Excel:
“Wait—”
Windows:
“Updating…”
And just like that, my overnight Ctrl+Z experiment came to an end.
To be fair to Windows…
There is an important point here.
Windows Update isn’t inherently doing something wrong by updating and restarting a computer.
Updates are necessary.
Security updates are necessary.
Operating systems need maintenance.
And apparently, an update required a restart during the night.
So I can’t really blame Windows for wanting to update.
But from the perspective of my experiment, the timing was almost perfect.
I had deliberately left a computer running overnight because I wanted to observe a Microsoft application that had been processing an operation for almost two hours.
And another Microsoft component effectively said:
No observation for you.
It is difficult to write better comedy than that.
Excel excels
At this point, I started thinking again about the name Excel.
Maybe the name really is appropriate.
Excel excels at spreadsheets.
It excels at data processing.
It excels at formulas.
It excels at VBA.
It excels at automation.
And yesterday, it excelled at turning a simple 40-line paste into a two-hour philosophical experience.
But now we have learned something else.
Windows also excels.
Windows excels at managing the computer.
Windows excels at updating itself.
Windows excels at restarting the computer at exactly the moment when you’re conducting an important overnight experiment.
So perhaps the real lesson isn’t:
Excel isn’t Excel.
Perhaps the lesson is:
Microsoft products excel at many different things.
Sometimes they excel at exactly what you want.
Sometimes they excel at something you didn’t ask for.
And sometimes they excel at getting in each other’s way.
The unexpected ending
The most frustrating part is that I still don’t know what happened to Excel.
Did it eventually finish after two hours?
Would it have finished after three?
Five?
Ten?
Would it still have been there this morning?
Would the workbook have returned to normal?
Would Excel have eventually displayed some miraculous:
Undo completed
message?
I’ll never know.
Windows has taken that knowledge to the grave.
Or, more accurately, to the reboot.
And now I’m left with a new mystery.
Yesterday’s question was:
Will Excel ever finish?
Today’s question is:
Why did Windows restart while I was waiting for Excel to finish?
And somehow, I suspect this story isn’t over yet.
Because this is Microsoft.
And when one Microsoft product creates a problem, there is always the possibility that another Microsoft product is waiting patiently nearby to excel at making the situation even more interesting.
Day 2 conclusion
I began Day 2 expecting to finally discover what happened to Excel.
Instead:
Windows Update restarted the computer.
So I still don’t know whether Excel would have eventually recovered.
But I do know one thing.
Excel excelled.
Windows excelled.
And together, they managed to turn a simple search for a header into a two-day Microsoft experience I never asked for.
Honestly, I couldn’t have planned it better.