Excel closes all open workbooks when another application i..

I have an issue that is driving me nuts. When I have an excel workbook open
and then try to open word. Sometimes (not always) it causes excel to close
all the open workbooks without saving them, but leaves the excel application
itself open, and word opens fine. I've checked for macros, disabled all
plugins, tried doing a repair install and nothing seems to fix this. I
switch between applications all day long and it is really frustrating. If I
close the excel application and then reopen it the files that I had open are
in the document recovery. It also does the same thing when switching to
Outlook. Is there a bug(or undocumented MS "feature") in excel that i'm not
aware of. This is on office 2002 professional with outlook 2003.
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Paul Kotlarz