MS Dynamic Data Exchange(DDE) & VISTA & SAS & EG

[JohnH]

As far as we an tell, DDE no longer works in the VISTA operating system. It is not a SAS issue. Does anyone know this for sure and/or does anyone have a way to get DDE to work in VISTA and SAS and EG? We have promised ourselves to stop writing DDE code, but we have a bunch of legacy code to deal with. It would be great if we could buy some time to convert the legacy code. BTW, since we are a little fish in a big Company, we don't seem to have the option of halting the switch to VISTA. they want all machines converted bt the end of the calendar year.

[Cynthia_sas]

Hi:
This Tech Support note seems pretty definitive on the subject:
http://support.sas.com/kb/20/767.html

cynthia

Some other papers and items of interest:
http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings10/152-2010.pdf
http://blogs.sas.com/sasdummy/index.php?/archives/76-SAS-Enterprise-Guide-for-SAS-programmers.html
http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/sgf2008/eguide.pdf (page 9)

[JohnH]

Sorry, I forgot to mention that we have SAS installed on our PC along with EG, so the remote server is not the issue for us. Even when we run the code in Display Manager on a Vista machine with SAS the DDE will not run. And, when we run the DDE code on a PC in EG with SAS installed locally, and has the XP operating system, it runs. So, our issue seems to be about the fact that VISTA has problems with DDE...unless there is a VISTA setting that we need to change. Any ideas?

[Cynthia_sas]

I think you should work with Tech Support and/or start rewriting programs. To open a track with Tech Support, fill out the form at this link:
http://support.sas.com/ctx/supportform/createForm

cynthia

Microsoft site info:
(on creating shortcut menu handlers says that DDE is deprecated)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc144171(VS.85).aspx

and this is an interesting exchange about DDE behavior:
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/vcgeneral/thread/7fd0aa4f-8943-4ca1-ae29-7e5aaeccb774

[ChrisHemedinger]

John,

It might be that User Account Control (UAC) is getting in the way of DDE working, since it involves launching a process on your behalf (Excel) and that's a big red flag that the UAC likes to stomp on.

You might be able set an exception policy, or try to turn off UAC and see if it helps.

Going to Vista now? Really? I'm surprised, because at this point many people have skipped Vista and jumped to Windows 7. Windows 7 has scaled back the User Account Control stance a little bit, I think in response to incompatibility issues like this one.

Chris