Microsoft KB Archive/105005

= PRB: DDEInitiate Gives Remote Data Not Accessible Dialog Box =

Article ID: 105005

Article Last Modified on 11/17/2003

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visual FoxPro 3.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft FoxPro 2.5b
 * Microsoft FoxPro 2.5a

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This article was previously published under Q105005



SYMPTOMS
In FoxPro for Windows the DDEInitiate function may result in getting an undesirable "? Remote data not accessible. Start application ' .EXE'?" dialog box.

Code following the DDEInitiate function may check for the return of -1, which indicates that the channel was not established; however, the code is not yet executed.



CAUSE
The default setting for the Safety clause of the DDESetOption function is true (.T.). This setting specifies whether a dialog box is displayed when the DDEInitiate function is used to establish a channel to a server application and the application is not currently open.



RESOLUTION
Issue the DDESetOption function prior to the DDEInitiate function to change the setting for Safety to false (.F.).

For example, the following code establishes a DDE channel between Microsoft FoxPro for Windows and Microsoft Excel, even if Microsoft Excel is not presently minimized in the Windows background, without receiving the dialog box message mentioned above: =DDESetOption("SAFETY",.F.) DO WHILE .T.     =DDESetOption("TimeOut",10000) iChannel=DDEInitiate("Excel","System") =DDESetOption("TimeOut",2000) IF iChannel !=-1  && If Excel is started, exit loop EXIT ELSE            && Start Excel & try to get channel RUN /N3 d:\msoffice\excel\excel.exe  && Change this line && according to your path to Excel. ENDIF ENDDO

