Showcase Query Excel Add-in Fails with Unrecognizable File Format Error

 

With the release of Showcase versions 9.1.0.0 and higher, we changed the nomenclature and installation directory of our Showcase product to better represent the suite of tools and products available. The change has resulted in some users receiving an error when opening Microsoft Excel due to system environment variable still looking for the Showcase add-ins in the old location. The error states "File not in recognizable format". If you experience this problem, follow the directions below to point the Showcase environment variables to the new installation directory.

To correct the ShowCase environment path, follow one of the two Options listed below.

Option 1:
Retrieve and Edit the Environment Variable PATH Statement

1. In Start - Settings - Control Panel select the System option and go to the Advanced Tab.
    
2. Click on Environment variables. In the System Variables window find and highlight the 'Path' entry. There are several entries with the word 'path' in them but there should only be one named simply 'Path'. Highlight this entry and then click on the Edit button.
    
3. Within the Edit window, the entire path should be highlighted by default when the dialog first opens.  Hit Control + C to copy the entire path to the clipboard and paste it into any text editor such as Notepad or Word.
    
4. Correct the ShowCase PATH environment variables so it is pointing to the bin folder within the ShowCase install folder where the ShowCase Excel add-in file SCXADD32.XLL resides for your release. (see DEFAULT Locations for Previous and Current versions of ShowCase listed below)
    

Option 2:
Change the location in which Excel is looking for this information by updating the Windows Registry.

1. Click on Start | Run, on the open line type: REGEDIT and click on "OK".
    
2. This will open the Registry Editor.
    
3. Navigate to the following location: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\n.n\Excel\Options.
   (where n.n is your Excel version such as, 9.0, 10.0 11.0 and so on)
    
4. When you click on the Option folder on the left, you will see several entries or keys listed on the right side of the screen.
    
5. Double click on the key called OPEN, and on the right side correct the path to point to the correct location of the ShowCase Excel Add-in for your release. (see DEFAULT Locations for Previous and Current versions of ShowCase listed below)
    
6. Please note that there should only be one (1) OPEN key referencing ShowCase. Note: You can delete any extra entries by right clicking and selecting "Delete"

DEFAULT Locations for Previous and Current versions of ShowCase:

For versions 6.5 and 6.51:
Default installation is C:\Program Files\STRATEGY\bin

For Showcase Suite versions 7.00, 7.10 and 8.00:
The default installation is C:\Program Files\ShowCase Suite\bin

For Showcase versions 9.00 and 9.0.0.4:
The default installation location is C:\Program Files\IBM\ShowCase\9\bin

For ShowCase version 9.1.0.x:
For Windows XP and Windows 7 (32-Bit): The default installation is: C:\Program Files\ShowCase\9\bin
For Windows 7 (64-Bit): The default installation is: C:\Program Files (x86)\ShowCase\9\bin

For information on using the ShowCase Add-ins, please reference the Help menu within ShowCase Query and look for "add-ins" in the index.

Ref#: 1476434