DDEInitiate and RSLinx

Hello...

I have tried searching the forum but I could not find an error similar to what I am facing.

I have a Excel file that uses DDE to gather data from a Guard Logic PLC.

The Excel file was running on an older laptop and working perfectly fine. I recently upgraded to a new laptop and now it will not work. I have installed RSLinx Classic OEM, created a topic for the DDE. When I run my Macro on the new laptop it gives me a run-time error "Cannot run "RSLINX.EXE". The program or one of its components is damaged or missing".

It will not open RSLinx. I am banging my head against the wall as the only difference between the old laptop and the new is the OS is 64bit.

Any direction or help would be wonderful.

Thanks

You mentioned that the only difference between the old and the new is that the new is a 64bit operating system, that could be the route of you problem. Some feature may only be supported on a 32bit operating system. I would try and contact your allen bradley rep if you have the support contract and see if what you have is compatible, because their are instances where necessary steps have to be taken if your OS is 64bit.

Also was the old OS running windows XP and is the new one Windows 7??? if thats the case that may be the issue as well, i would follow the steps i have highlighted above.

We do this on Windows 7 64-bit without issues. However you may want to check the version of RSLinx that you are using, also make sure your VBA in your excel is "trusted" and macro security is set properly.

Are you running RSLinx as a service?

Thanks for the replies...

They are both Windows 7 machines. I don't have a tech connect agreement, but I will try my rep.

I am using RSLinx version 3.6. The VBA and security settings are the same on both machines, however the VBA is not set to trusted on either.

I have tried using RSLinx as a service and with the program running.

It almost seems as though my excel macro can't find RSLinx to run it.

Any other thoughts?

I am really stumped. It must be something very silly I am missing.

If you are running Google Chrome turn it off and try the spreadsheet again. Also check out this link:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...s-and-it/5546629c-b5ea-4616-af5d-1174e00773c0

Keep in mind that Microsoft will be making it harder and harder for you to use DDE because they want to stop supporting it.

Thanks for the replies.

I managed to figure out what the problem was. I did not realize you had to map to the location of the PLC on the network in the topic configuration in RSLinx. Once I did that it worked.

I'm going to add some things that I just discovered that might help someone else.

1. On Windows 7 you have to run Excel as an Administrator in order to get the DDE Links to work.
2. Broken or undefined DDE topics will also cause the message that RSLinx could not be started!

I upgraded my copy of RSLinx, and when I restored from an older backup, it did not have one of the topics that my spreadsheet needed. I kept getting the message that RSLinx could not be started even though it was already running, which was VERY confusing! Once I fixed that (and ran Excel as administrator) everything is good again (RSLinx version 2.59.00, running on Windows 7 - 32 bit).

Mark Whitt said:

I'm going to add some things that I just discovered that might help someone else.

1. On Windows 7 you have to run Excel as an Administrator in order to get the DDE Links to work.

Click to expand...

That right there just saved me as I was about to !

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

-Josh

This doesn't make sense but I had to make the PLC tag name the same as the DDE topic name the same as the cell in excel spreadsheet all have to be the same.