Excel 97 will not let me cut and paste

I have posted this question before and found no solution. I will try again.
I go to open my files and up pops the OPEN box prompted to My Documents. (which is what I want)
I have files in My Documents I want to put into a folder that is in My Documents. I right click on the file and choose Cut. I go to the folder and right click on it and about 98% of the time there is no option to Paste. I have tried opening the folder to Paste in there but it gives me a completely different set of choices that does not include Paste. Why does this work some of the time and mostly none of the time!
I have broken it down and see that if I start my computer and go right to this task it works more often (and that is almost never) than if I open up a bunch of stuff and try it. Any clues?? I have been here for months trying to figure this out!

Help!
C*

 

So, you open microsoft excel and the window pops up to open a file. In that window you are trying to move around files within the My Documents folder? Is that correct?

If so, that is not how you should be doing it, because the open window in excel was not meant for it (although, it should work, but can cause problems). Excel 97 is very old and was not meant for this, which is probably why the paste function is not showing up.

One of my co-workers always does this. If she wants to move a folder, she opens word and clicks to open a file, then moved it from in there. She always loses files and such, because it is not meant for this.

What version of windows are you using? If you want to cut and paste files within My documents, open the My documents folder in windows explorer (NOT EXCEL) and move the files within that folder.

 

Ah ha! I tried that and it worked. Should work everytime huh? I hope so!
As for what version of Windows, it is XP. And I have no idea why 97 is on this system, I don't own it. I came into this well after they got XP.
Thank you again! (I know you have helped me out before)
C*arolyn