Waiting for MSAccess to execute DDE commands

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BAC - 28 Dec 2005 17:22 GMT

Win 2000 Pro, Office 2000 Pro SP3

I submitted this earlier this month (12/8/05) and managed to get the DDE
interface working again by un-installing and re-installing Office 2000, SP3
using the "Run all from my computer" option.

Well it worked for a couple of days, but now I'm getting this error for both
Excel and Access and the Word mail merge document just hangs. I can get into
the data source Access querry and the Excel workbook/spreadsheet. I can run
the query in Access.

I've un-installed and re-installed twice (the second time I rebooted between
the un-install and re-install -> something I didn't think necessary the 1st
time, but when the 1st re-install didn't work I figured what the heck!)

I have A LOT of Access-> Excel integrated apps that are falling apart
because, apparently Access is not talking to Excel, and word is apparently
not talking to either Access or Excel...

I work on a very large corporate network, and the IT types are constatntly
loading hotfixes and upgrades "behind the scenes", but they can't seem to
find any "connection" between my problems and their downloads. I am not teh
only one having these problems, but I do know that not many folks in my area
use DDE and VBA and it may be a local thing..

Any suggestions on configuartion settings or some such that may cause this??
Encryption software, maybe??

I really need help here and the local boys ain't gettin' it!

TIA
BAC

:Previous Post:

Can you convert the query to a make table query and then use that table as
the datasource.

Signature

Hope this helps.

Please reply to the newsgroup unless you wish to avail yourself of my
services on a paid consulting basis.

Doug Robbins - Word MVP

"BAC" <BAC@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:72678341-1503-4D4D-BAD9-B4C894AB7342@microsoft.com...

> I've got a word mail-merge main document that has worked for the last 6
> months and today is giving me the above status bar message.
>
> When I open the Word document, Access opens and I get the login screen for
> my .mdw workgroup. After entering my UID & Password, I used to be prompted
> for a date parameter for the underlying query..that no longer happens.
>
> Access is open and I can get to the database window and run the query
> manually. When I open Task Manager, the Application tab shows Access as
> "Running" and Word as "Not Responding".
>
> I have moved both the Access database and Word document to my local drive
> (they were running on a network drive); verified that the "Enable DDE
> Refresh" option is checked and the "OLE.DDE timeout (sec)" box is set for
> 10
> seconds. The query behind the Mail Merge is an ODBC call which is active
> and,
> as noted above, works when run in Access, but no longer runs when I open
> the
> Word document.
>
> I have reconstructed the query and the document from scratch, but I get
> the
> "Waiting for ..." message after selecting the query in the Access database
> (butr at least here I get beyond the .mdw.workgroup login..
>
> Any ideas as to why this "connection" may no longer be working? I've run
> out
> of ideas on where to look or what else to look for...The KB gave me
> nothing..
>
> Thanx

Reply to this Message

Cindy M -WordMVP- - 29 Dec 2005 14:40 GMT

Hi =?Utf-8?B?QkFD?=,

As far as I know, there's not a lot you can do when DDE basically stops working
on a system. The few Knowledge Base articles at Microsoft.com basically say
"use something other than DDE". As far as I've ever been able to determine, the
problem seems to be at the WINDOWS, not the Office level.

As far as Access<->Excel goes: any reason you're not using an ODBC connection
for that (MS Query, basically)?

ODBC would also be a possibility for mail merge, but you'd have to get rid of
the parameter query and filter the records at the merge end, instead.

> Win 2000 Pro, Office 2000 Pro SP3
>
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
>
> I really need help here and the local boys ain't gettin' it!

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun 8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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