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Mail merge locks Word 2000

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by dliby

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When I start a mail merge in Word and use Excel 2000 as the data source Word Hangs up. In the bottom left of the screen I get the message "Iniating DDE link with Microsoft Excel" then nothing happens. I am using Microsoft Office 2000 sp3. What is happening?

4 replies

by bfilmfan

Microsoft Windows provides several methods for transferring data between applications. One method is to use the Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) protocol. The DDE protocol is a set of messages and guidelines. It sends messages between applications that share data and uses shared memory to exchange data between applications. Applications can use the DDE protocol for one-time data transfers and for continuous exchanges in which applications send updates to one another as new data becomes available.

How much memory is on this workstation conducting this mail merge and what other applications are running? Mail merges are CPU and memory intensive operations.

by dliby

The OS is Windows XP Pro., 3 gig processor, 512 megs ram, The problem occurs with small (4 records) and large excel files. Tried it without any other applications running

by sgt_shultz

i bet this is sp2 and i bet a dollar this is the DCOM permissions thing that crops up after security patches.
I will look again for the instructions to change the permissions at support.microsoft.com. it was simple to do but i don't remember where to find it, i think it was thru the admin/odbc tools in control panel
i wonder if an office 'repair' would fix this? Add/Remove Software/Office 2000/repair
you will need the installation CD for the repair.

by sgt_shultz

oh yeah, anything in the event logs?
is the datasource an Excel file, and is the data source local? have you tried moving the data to word to get the job done while you figure this out?

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