OLE Server

Topic

New Reply

I have a Access Database in which I have a few Access Reports that have embedded Word Documents in them. When I go into design mode in reports I get the following error ” Database cannot communicate with OLE Server. The OLE Server may not be registered. To register the OLE Server, reinstall it. So how do I register an OLE Server. I have attempted to re-install Office 97 with no luck to clear the error. Appreciate your assistance in this matter!

Reply | Quote

Replies

I would have thought re-installing Word (via reinstalling Office 97) would have re-registered Word (which I believe is the OLE Server in question). Since that did not work as per your post, I too shall await a more learned response from a more learned poster.

I’ve had this same error crop up while trying to embed a Word 2000 document in Publisher 2000.

Reply | Quote

Reinstalling IS the official resolution:

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/ar…s/Q212/6/47.ASP

Reply | Quote

I am experiencing this same problem, but the Q-article to which your message points does not seem to apply. What is the IS that you suggest needs to be reinstalled?

Reply | Quote

Sorry, I’m just as lost as you are on this one. That Q article seems to indicate or flattly states the reinstalling the app solves the problem. In an OLE context both the client and the server can be both the client and the server, so reinstall both apps??

Beats me. You could try reinstalling both the calling App and the called app.

Reply | Quote

I completely re-installed Office 97 and it did not help.

Reply | Quote

And by that you mean both the client and server, say Excel and Word, got reinstalled?

Like I said, “beats me.”

Reply | Quote

Do you have more than one version of Office/Word/Access on your machine? That could confuse Access, especially if the other version was the last one loaded.

Reply | Quote

No, I only have Office 97 installed. This problem only started a while ago. Everything was working at one point. I am not sure, but I may have installed VB 6 about the same time as this problem started to occur.

Reply | Quote

That may very well be the cause of the problem. VB6 installs a bunch of dlls, some of which have the same name as the older ones but don’t behave the same way. Reinstalling Office won’t overwrite later versions of the dlls. Check your references in Access and see if you have any that are MISSING.

Reply | Quote

I am getting the same problem trying to put a Word 2000 doc into an Access 2000 form. The same message appears on all 4 of my office computers. In another company where I am currently working, there is no problem so, acting on a complete hunch, I have replaced the contents of C:Program FilesCommon FilesSystemOle DB with the files from a machine where OLE works. Hey presto! My OLE now works fine
Woops! In the time it took me to type the above, OLE has gone belly up again

Reply | Quote

Charlotte,

I am confused by your suggestion that I check my references. What exactly do you mean by this? Also, do you know of where I might find a list of DLLs and their uses, so I can determine which one handles the OLE.

Thanks,

Mark.

Reply | Quote

Go into the VB Editor (Alt+F11, or whatever method you commonly use). Select the Tools menu and click References. You’ll see a list of available libraries. Those that have check marks next to them have been added to your database. If any of the say MISSING, it means that the computer can’t find that filename in the location specified.

There is an OLE automation library, but that may not be the problem. That library is at C:WINNTSystem32stdole2.tlb on my machine, but that may vary depending on operating system. However, any time you try to automate one application from another (i.e., open Word from Access and do a mail merge), the remote application is acting as an OLE server, so the automation library may not be the one causing you problems.

Reply | Quote

Thank you for this assistance, Charlotte. Unfortunately, no go. None of the references say “Missing” (I checked in Access, Word and VB) and the STDOLE2.TLB file is in place.

Is there any registry entries that I should be looking at?

Reply | Quote

Not that I know of. What operating system are you using?

Reply | Quote

Outlook 98SE

Reply | Quote

Hi Mark,

I’m working on the same problem at the moment. Was testing some embeded word document extract code and discovered that my link between A97/Word 97 is broken.

A couple of comments on what I’ve come up with so far:
1. MSFT doesn’t have anything on this in the MSKB.
2. Word 97 re-registers itself (as most of the other office apps) whenever it’s started, not at install, so re-installing does nothing in this regard.
3. Install of multiple versions of office does not cause the problem. I’ve got 4.0, ’95, ’97, and ’00 all installed on one PC and this was working fine. I’m not sure what broke it at this point). This PC is my sandbox, so it’s got a lot on it (i.e. Visual Studio).

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s some registry keys that have gotten messed up, but I’ve yet to try a re-install of Office 97 using /y. The /y switch forces a rewrite of the registry keys. What most don’t realize is that Setup will skip rewritting the registry if it dectects a previous install. I’m going to try this a little later today. Will let you know if it clears up the problem.

Jim.

Reply | Quote