Excel 97 Templates in 2000

This network admin person feels really stupid right now. I am unable to get Excel 2000 Pro to recognize an Excel template created by Excel 97. I have tried by placing it in both of the following directories. Neither worked. Any suggestions?

c:/Program Files/Microsoft Office/Templates/1033/

c:/Documents and Settings/User Name/Templates

Our workstations are using Windows 2000 Pro on an NT server. The version of Excel is from Office 2000 Pro

Thanks to anyone who can assist.