We too were stymied when we found out MS, decided to remove some of the functionality from the updated version of Excel. We now use the free Open Office to load the spreadsheets and save the data in .dbf format. The latest version should have actual xlsx compatibility. For us this wasn't a problem since we saved everything in 2003 format anyway.

We are also in the process of converting and testing our macros and vba to rid ourselves of MS office totally.