i have a set of UDFs which often take a long time to calculate.  they
go to SQL Server and upload and download requests and do a lot of
processing.  Since they take a long time, i would like to provide the
user status information, such as how many requests have been downloaded
so far, etc.

i have tried to use application.statusbar, but it appears to be locked
during excel calculation.  i have also tried to set the captions of my
own office.commandbarbutton, but they do not repaint themselves until
after calculation, even if i call doevents (which tends to destabilize
calculation anyway, which i would like to avoid).

the next thing i will try is to make a DLL with a blank VB6 form which
i'll use since it supports refresh or repaint methods.

however, since this seems like something that someone smart would have
done at one time, i would like to know if there is a nice, easy
solution that doesn't involve me having to distribute another DLL with
my addin.  Thanks in advance.

I am using WinXP, XL 2002.