DDE very slow with Excel 2002, 2003
 

I have a DDE server app that my clients use to import data
into Excel. After some of my clients upgraded to Excel
2002 & Windows XP I received numerous complaints about
sevier performans deterioration. For example a spreadsheet
with 150 DDE links used to update for 2-3 min with Excel
200 on Windows 2000. With Excel 2002 on Windows XP it take
15 to 20 min for the same spreadsheet !!! As they spent
lots of money for the upgrade, everithing was blamed on my
DDE server. I took some of their documents and made some
test with different versions of Windows, Excel and
OpenOffice 1.1. I observed the following:
On Windows XP:
1. With Excel 2002, after opening the document and
pressing the "Update" button, it takes a long time for
Excel to estabilish the DDE conversations. Once this is
done the updates go thruogh quickly (but still slower than
with Excel 2000)
2. With Excel 2002, after opening and pressing "Update",
if you switch to different app immideatly (so the Excel go
in the background) the initiation of DDE conversations gos
very fast and the data updates go faster. (but still
slower than with Excel 2000)
3. With Excel 2000 on both Windows 2000 & XP there is no
performance deterioration but on XP the updates are slower
than on 2000.
4. With OpenOffice useing the same documents like with MS
Excel, there is no performance deterioration on both
Windows 2000 & Windows XP, and the updates are faster than
with Excel 2000 or excel 2002.

I have the latest service packs installed for Wondows 2000
& Windows XP and the latest office service packs for
Office 2000 & Office XP, plus I installed all the updates
available for Excel 2002.

The same problem exists (according to my clients) with
Excel 2003 but I could not test it for myself as I do not
have the product.

Any sugestions ?
- remove "_removethis_"