I have a workbook that was originally created in Excel 97 that uses NetDDE
and has worked with each new Office release until Excel 2003. When I open
the workbook Excel 2003 prompts to update the data, and after saying yes
complains that 'Remote data is not accessible'. It does not appear to be a
security or permissions problem as I see no error messages on the machine
where the DDE server is located. I have searched for a possible explanation
in various MS knowledgebases but find no answers.

Does Excel 2003 support NetDDE? If that is the case, it would be nice if
that was stated somewhere.

I am using the same syntax for netdde that has always worked:

=\\servername\appname|item!'topic'

Thank you.

I should have mentioned in the original post, I verified that NetDDE is
running. I have several other PC's that are accessing the same DDE server
simultaneously using NetDDE fine. They are running NT and Win2K with various
older versions of Excel with an exact duplicate of the workbook. When the
workbook is opened on these older PC's it typically takes less than 10
seconds to obtain all 200+ external NetDDE references. They then update in
near real time as data changes on the remote DDE server.

Update:
When I open a copy of the workbook on the XP PC with Excel 2003, I say yes
to update just like on the other PC's. It looks like Excel then goes into a
loop where I see a small window 'Starting NetDDE...' flash on the screen
about every 10 seconds.

At about the 10 minute mark, the workbook will finally display the external
data, and then update very much like the older PC's displaying new data in
near real time. Note: Many of these values change every few seconds.

It seems that patience was the solution, just waiting for the workbook to
get initial values. If anyone has an idea of why the new version of Excel
takes so much longer to retrieve initial values I would like to hear from you

Thanks!

Paul Erickson

"mnstargazer" wrote:

I have a workbook that was originally created in Excel 97 that uses NetDDE
and has worked with each new Office release until Excel 2003. When I open
the workbook Excel 2003 prompts to update the data, and after saying yes
complains that 'Remote data is not accessible'. It does not appear to be a
security or permissions problem as I see no error messages on the machine
where the DDE server is located. I have searched for a possible explanation
in various MS knowledgebases but find no answers.

Does Excel 2003 support NetDDE? If that is the case, it would be nice if
that was stated somewhere.

I am using the same syntax for netdde that has always worked:

=\\servername\appname|item!'topic'

Thank you.