(I hope this helps someone avoid the 24 hours of pain I've just been
through!)

I manage a 2003 Server in a different country via Terminal Services.
The only software on the box is Office 2003 and Adobe PDF. For
months, we've been having the dreaded 'Cannot use object linking and
embedding' error whenever someone opens an Excel spreadsheet; when
it's being opened interactively, no problem, you just hit cancel.
However, when it's opened via a macro (of which we have dozens), no
dice, the macros fail. Even when run as an administrator.

When you google for "Cannot use object linking and embedding", most
solutions are along the lines of "it's the MS Blaster worm". Well, I
ran the anti-virus tools many times, it wasn't that. Another
suggestion was incorrect settings in DCOM config. Nope, they checked
out. Another suggestion was 'reboot into safe mode, open Excel, close
it, then reboot into normal mode' - strange, but fine, I'll try it -
except I'm thousands of miles away from the machine, and our hosting
is very poor, it just wasn't an option (if there's a way of booting
into safe mode and still being able to get in via TS, I'd be very
interested to hear it - I played around with the boot.ini on my local
VMWare copy of the server, and I couldn't see how it could be done).

Now, there has always been one account unaffected by the error, a
particular Power User account, and we had no idea why.

Anyway, I re-installed Office, and latest updates. Nope, problem
still there, except for this one account. For the thousandth time, I
checked out the DCOM settings. Nope, all ok... hang on.. what's
this? Five entries below "Microsoft Excel Application", there's
"Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Workbook". Not seen that before, we
don't have Excel 2007, it's never been installed on the server. Lo
and behold, under this entry, Excel is set to run as the Power User
that never had the problem. Which would imply that the DCOM config
entry I'd been checking all along is redundant; which isn't the case,
as I've made changes and seen the results!

So, I set the 'Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Workbook' AND 'Microsoft
Excel Application' DCOM entries to the same (desired) settings, and
everything works fine again - macros run, users are happy.

If I hadn't just spent so many hours on this one issue, I'd try and
track down exactly where the rogue 2007 entry came from, and why
changes to BOTH entries affect Excel. (I have my suspicions that an
MS Update may be responsible; I manage another, completely unrelated,
server and have experienced much weirdness directly after an MS
update.)

Like I said, hope this helps someone at some point in time!

Regards,

Nate

Thank you! You saved me a lot of troubleshooting time with your
advice.

On Mar 20, 1:01 pm, wrote:
Thank you! You saved me a lot of troubleshooting time with your
advice.

Funny enough, I never would have thought to check the DCom settings,
but sure enough I"m running Office 2003 and there was an entry for
Office 2007 (must be the viewers) and they were set differently. In my
case, I had the 2003 settings customized for old .net 1.0/1.1 code
that would use the Excel COM object and needed these settings. It had
been quite a while and I forgot about it, but the Security tab was
using a local account that the password had recently changed, reset
the password and all was well.

Thanks for the tip!

I'm having trouble with the same same issues. I am not as experienced in this as you guys.... could someone please explain to me where to look gor the rogue 2007 entry? I'm on windows 7

On Friday, February 1, 2008 8:22:25 AM UTC-5, Nate wrote:
(I hope this helps someone avoid the 24 hours of pain I've just been
through!)

I manage a 2003 Server in a different country via Terminal Services.
The only software on the box is Office 2003 and Adobe PDF. For
months, we've been having the dreaded 'Cannot use object linking and
embedding' error whenever someone opens an Excel spreadsheet; when
it's being opened interactively, no problem, you just hit cancel.
However, when it's opened via a macro (of which we have dozens), no
dice, the macros fail. Even when run as an administrator.

When you google for "Cannot use object linking and embedding", most
solutions are along the lines of "it's the MS Blaster worm". Well, I
ran the anti-virus tools many times, it wasn't that. Another
suggestion was incorrect settings in DCOM config. Nope, they checked
out. Another suggestion was 'reboot into safe mode, open Excel, close
it, then reboot into normal mode' - strange, but fine, I'll try it -
except I'm thousands of miles away from the machine, and our hosting
is very poor, it just wasn't an option (if there's a way of booting
into safe mode and still being able to get in via TS, I'd be very
interested to hear it - I played around with the boot.ini on my local
VMWare copy of the server, and I couldn't see how it could be done).

Now, there has always been one account unaffected by the error, a
particular Power User account, and we had no idea why.

Anyway, I re-installed Office, and latest updates. Nope, problem
still there, except for this one account. For the thousandth time, I
checked out the DCOM settings. Nope, all ok... hang on.. what's
this? Five entries below "Microsoft Excel Application", there's
"Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Workbook". Not seen that before, we
don't have Excel 2007, it's never been installed on the server. Lo
and behold, under this entry, Excel is set to run as the Power User
that never had the problem. Which would imply that the DCOM config
entry I'd been checking all along is redundant; which isn't the case,
as I've made changes and seen the results!

So, I set the 'Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Workbook' AND 'Microsoft
Excel Application' DCOM entries to the same (desired) settings, and
everything works fine again - macros run, users are happy.

If I hadn't just spent so many hours on this one issue, I'd try and
track down exactly where the rogue 2007 entry came from, and why
changes to BOTH entries affect Excel. (I have my suspicions that an
MS Update may be responsible; I manage another, completely unrelated,
server and have experienced much weirdness directly after an MS
update.)

Like I said, hope this helps someone at some point in time!

Regards,

Nate

How do we change the DCOM settings?

Open Component Services (Start - Run, type in dcomcnfg)
Drill down to Component Services - Computers - My Computer and click on DCOM Config


On Thursday, February 6, 2014 10:30:24 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Friday, February 1, 2008 8:22:25 AM UTC-5, Nate wrote:

(I hope this helps someone avoid the 24 hours of pain I've just been

through!)



I manage a 2003 Server in a different country via Terminal Services.

The only software on the box is Office 2003 and Adobe PDF. For

months, we've been having the dreaded 'Cannot use object linking and

embedding' error whenever someone opens an Excel spreadsheet; when

it's being opened interactively, no problem, you just hit cancel.

However, when it's opened via a macro (of which we have dozens), no

dice, the macros fail. Even when run as an administrator.



When you google for "Cannot use object linking and embedding", most

solutions are along the lines of "it's the MS Blaster worm". Well, I

ran the anti-virus tools many times, it wasn't that. Another

suggestion was incorrect settings in DCOM config. Nope, they checked

out. Another suggestion was 'reboot into safe mode, open Excel, close

it, then reboot into normal mode' - strange, but fine, I'll try it -

except I'm thousands of miles away from the machine, and our hosting

is very poor, it just wasn't an option (if there's a way of booting

into safe mode and still being able to get in via TS, I'd be very

interested to hear it - I played around with the boot.ini on my local

VMWare copy of the server, and I couldn't see how it could be done).



Now, there has always been one account unaffected by the error, a

particular Power User account, and we had no idea why.



Anyway, I re-installed Office, and latest updates. Nope, problem

still there, except for this one account. For the thousandth time, I

checked out the DCOM settings. Nope, all ok... hang on.. what's

this? Five entries below "Microsoft Excel Application", there's

"Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Workbook". Not seen that before, we

don't have Excel 2007, it's never been installed on the server. Lo

and behold, under this entry, Excel is set to run as the Power User

that never had the problem. Which would imply that the DCOM config

entry I'd been checking all along is redundant; which isn't the case,

as I've made changes and seen the results!



So, I set the 'Microsoft Office Excel 2007 Workbook' AND 'Microsoft

Excel Application' DCOM entries to the same (desired) settings, and

everything works fine again - macros run, users are happy.



If I hadn't just spent so many hours on this one issue, I'd try and

track down exactly where the rogue 2007 entry came from, and why

changes to BOTH entries affect Excel. (I have my suspicions that an

MS Update may be responsible; I manage another, completely unrelated,

server and have experienced much weirdness directly after an MS

update.)



Like I said, hope this helps someone at some point in time!



Regards,



Nate



How do we change the DCOM settings?