DDE Errors making office docs open slowly sometimes

so, some of you might have seen posts about the whole "my office docs open slow" where the problem is traced to DDE and if it disabled in the advanced options of a file type and disabled the problem goes away, but its a bad solution, well, its not a solution, its a workaround, which means all excel docs open in seperate application instances of excel making it far harder to copy cells etc between documets, and things like the find function are seperate making it far slower to compre data at a glance,

basically i dont think that work around is a good solution and have been looking for programs like ddespy to monitor whats happening with dde and why its causing the slowdown

recently i found one: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ddelinktcp/

installed it, ran the dde monitor and the following is what i get:

Code:

14-08-2009 11:35:12: Restarting DDE Service "METALINK"
14-08-2009 11:35:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: RSLINX\MYPLCREFERENCE, Attempt: 4
14-08-2009 11:35:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: EXCEL\PLAN1, Attempt: 4
14-08-2009 11:35:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\COMMAND.NETWORK, Attempt: 9
14-08-2009 11:35:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\READ.NETWORK, Attempt: 2
14-08-2009 11:35:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\SYSTEM, Attempt: 4
14-08-2009 11:33:12: ERROR ! Starting DDE Service "METALINK"
14-08-2009 11:33:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: RSLINX\MYPLCREFERENCE, Attempt: 3
14-08-2009 11:33:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: EXCEL\PLAN1, Attempt: 3
14-08-2009 11:33:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\COMMAND.NETWORK, Attempt: 8
14-08-2009 11:33:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\READ.NETWORK, Attempt: 1
14-08-2009 11:33:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\SYSTEM, Attempt: 3
14-08-2009 11:31:12: Restarting DDE Service "METALINK"
14-08-2009 11:31:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: RSLINX\MYPLCREFERENCE, Attempt: 2
14-08-2009 11:31:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: EXCEL\PLAN1, Attempt: 2
14-08-2009 11:31:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\COMMAND.NETWORK, Attempt: 7
14-08-2009 11:31:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\READ.NETWORK, Attempt: 7
14-08-2009 11:31:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\SYSTEM, Attempt: 2
14-08-2009 11:29:12: ERROR ! Starting DDE Service "RSLINX"
14-08-2009 11:29:12: ERROR ! Starting DDE Service "EXCEL"
14-08-2009 11:29:12: ERROR ! Starting DDE Service "METALINK"
14-08-2009 11:29:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: RSLINX\MYPLCREFERENCE, Attempt: 1
14-08-2009 11:29:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: EXCEL\PLAN1, Attempt: 1
14-08-2009 11:29:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\COMMAND.NETWORK, Attempt: 6
14-08-2009 11:29:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\READ.NETWORK, Attempt: 6
14-08-2009 11:29:12: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\SYSTEM, Attempt: 1
14-08-2009 11:27:22: Restarting DDE Service "RSLINX"
14-08-2009 11:27:22: Restarting DDE Service "EXCEL"
14-08-2009 11:27:22: Restarting DDE Service "METALINK"
14-08-2009 11:27:22: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: RSLINX\MYPLCREFERENCE, Attempt: 5
14-08-2009 11:27:22: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: EXCEL\PLAN1, Attempt: 5
14-08-2009 11:27:22: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\COMMAND.NETWORK, Attempt: 5
14-08-2009 11:27:22: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\READ.NETWORK, Attempt: 5
14-08-2009 11:27:22: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\SYSTEM, Attempt: 5
14-08-2009 11:25:52: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: RSLINX\MYPLCREFERENCE, Attempt: 4
14-08-2009 11:25:52: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: EXCEL\PLAN1, Attempt: 4
14-08-2009 11:25:52: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\COMMAND.NETWORK, Attempt: 4
14-08-2009 11:25:52: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\READ.NETWORK, Attempt: 4
14-08-2009 11:25:52: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\SYSTEM, Attempt: 4
14-08-2009 11:24:42: ERROR ! Starting DDE Service "METALINK"
14-08-2009 11:24:42: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: RSLINX\MYPLCREFERENCE, Attempt: 3
14-08-2009 11:24:42: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: EXCEL\PLAN1, Attempt: 3
14-08-2009 11:24:42: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\COMMAND.NETWORK, Attempt: 3
14-08-2009 11:24:42: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\READ.NETWORK, Attempt: 3
14-08-2009 11:24:42: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\SYSTEM, Attempt: 3
14-08-2009 11:23:52: ERROR ! Starting DDE Service "METALINK"
14-08-2009 11:23:52: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: RSLINX\MYPLCREFERENCE, Attempt: 2
14-08-2009 11:23:52: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: EXCEL\PLAN1, Attempt: 2
14-08-2009 11:23:52: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\COMMAND.NETWORK, Attempt: 2
14-08-2009 11:23:52: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\READ.NETWORK, Attempt: 2
14-08-2009 11:23:52: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\SYSTEM, Attempt: 2
14-08-2009 11:23:22: ERROR ! Starting DDE Service "RSLINX"
14-08-2009 11:23:22: ERROR ! Starting DDE Service "EXCEL"
14-08-2009 11:23:22: ERROR ! Starting DDE Service "METALINK"
14-08-2009 11:23:22: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: RSLINX\MYPLCREFERENCE, Attempt: 1
14-08-2009 11:23:22: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: EXCEL\PLAN1, Attempt: 1
14-08-2009 11:23:22: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\COMMAND.NETWORK, Attempt: 1
14-08-2009 11:23:22: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\READ.NETWORK, Attempt: 1
14-08-2009 11:23:22: ERROR ! Opening DDE connection: METALINK\SYSTEM, Attempt: 1
14-08-2009 11:23:18: Listening TCP/IP Port [42361], Local Host: CHRISLENG, Local IP: 10.0.0.55
14-08-2009 11:23:12: ERROR ! Loading language file of METALINK, METALINK POP-UPs may be enabled !, Message: Cannot open file "C:\FMS\LANGUAGE\220.ENG". The system cannot find the path specified
14-08-2009 11:23:12: Wait...
14-08-2009 11:23:12: Loading options
14-08-2009 11:23:12: DDELinkTcp started

here's hoping

Code:

 tags work here ^^

but yea, the local dde server (just for apps on my PC) for excel, metalink and rslinx all seem to be unable to start (i'm guessing the other two are involved because i have the same problem opening word but its name doesn't show in the report.

so yea, now i have more details on the problem i was wondering if anyone could help with a solution ^^ :D

thanks in advance

[this is not a network problem as far as i know, please dont move this thread there again, moving the old thread back instead of posting this one would be fine too]

 

Just curious about your OS as you didn't mention it. Reason for asking is that I notice that you mentioned rslinx as a problem, and that is part of Rockwell/AllenBradley programming software for PLCs. So, I'm assuming that you work in Engineering or Maintenance, and are using a version of RSLinx that is above Lite.

Not sure of any versions of RSLinx that have been certified to work with anything later than XP, so there is a possibility that this could be causing the problem that you describe. Hope this helps!

 

well, i'm on XP Pro SP3, not vista,

but i dont have anything like what you describe so i wonder why rslinx is trying to even run, suggestions on how to disable it? if its not attached to anything/installed incorrectly that could be the problem

also any suggestions on how to get the Excel service to run?

 

To disable the RSLinx setting, look under programs and there should be an entry for Rockwell Software and there should be a tab for RSLinx Control Panel. Click on it and choose the option to never run as a service. That should take care of the RSLinx problem. To stop it immediately, right click on the icon in the right hand side of the task bar that represents it ( should be there if it is running as a service ) and that will kill it for the present boot cycle.

Did some research on Metalink and found that it could be associated with Oracle software or download managers for torrent clients. So if you have a torrent app installed, that could be causing some of your problems.

Can't help with the Excel issue as my knowledge of it is extremely basic. Hope this helps!