<P> Excel 2.0 for Windows, which was modeled after its Mac GUI - based counterpart, indirectly expanded the installed base of the then - nascent Windows environment . Excel 2.0 was released a month before Windows 2.0, and the installed base of Windows was so low at that point in 1987 that Microsoft had to bundle a run - time version of Windows 1.0 with Excel 2.0 . Unlike Microsoft Word, there never was a DOS version of Excel . </P> <P> Excel became the first spreadsheet to allow the user to define the appearance of spreadsheets (fonts, character attributes and cell appearance). It also introduced intelligent cell recomputation, where only cells dependent on the cell being modified are updated (previous spreadsheet programs recomputed everything all the time or waited for a specific user command). Excel introduced auto - fill, the ability to drag and expand the selection box to automatically copy cell or row contents to adjacent cells or rows, adjusting the copies intelligently by automatically incrementing cell references or contents . Excel also introduced extensive graphing capabilities . </P> <P> Because Excel is widely used, it has been attacked by hackers . While Excel is not directly exposed to the Internet, if an attacker can get a victim to open a file in Excel, and there is an appropriate security bug in Excel, then the attacker can get control of the victim's computer . UK's GCHQ has a tool named TORNADO ALLEY with this purpose . </P>

Describe the role of formula and function in ms excel