Replies

In the hope of not appearing too naive, what happens if you use the record macro option to capture some code when the button is pressed. I don’t know how well this works with a third party application, but it might be worth looking at the code Excel generates to see if that has any pointers in it.

I’ve seen this sort of behaviour and the culprit was not in a place I’d expect: It was DNS.

To quickly fix the problem, go into the DNS server and delete the dot folder (that is the folder labelled with a dot (.)). Then use the static addressing. If you don’t have a dot folder in DNS, my diagnosis is wrong.

If you install the DNS service on a Win2k server without having access to the internet, the server thinks it is the only DNS server in its world. It sets itself up as the root server. As a root server it will not go out to the internet root servers to resolve internet names.

To accesses local shares you need to have the server’s DNS set up at the client as the primary DNS server.

What I think you are seeing is that with Static IPs, you are setting the server as the DNS server for each client. In this configuration you will be able to access the shares. However, because the server thinks there are no other root servers, it will not resolve intenernet names (such as http://www.wopr.com) and this effectively stops client computers accessing internet resources that are accessed by name – that is it stops them browsing the internet.

When you switch to DHCP, the DNS server setting is set to point at an external DNS server. This will allow internet names to be resolved and internet browsing will now work. However, you will no longer be able to resolve local names (in particular in the authentication process) and that will effectively stop you accessing local shares.

Personally I’d not only remove the Dot folder in DNS but also reconfigure your DHCP so that it gives out your local server as the primary DNS server to all the clients. Then use DHCP for IP addressing for all the client PCs.

I’ve seen this sort of behaviour and the culprit was not in a place I’d expect: It was DNS.

To quickly fix the problem, go into the DNS server and delete the dot folder (that is the folder labelled with a dot (.)). Then use the static addressing. If you don’t have a dot folder in DNS, my diagnosis is wrong.

If you install the DNS service on a Win2k server without having access to the internet, the server thinks it is the only DNS server in its world. It sets itself up as the root server. As a root server it will not go out to the internet root servers to resolve internet names.

To accesses local shares you need to have the server’s DNS set up at the client as the primary DNS server.

What I think you are seeing is that with Static IPs, you are setting the server as the DNS server for each client. In this configuration you will be able to access the shares. However, because the server thinks there are no other root servers, it will not resolve intenernet names (such as http://www.wopr.com) and this effectively stops client computers accessing internet resources that are accessed by name – that is it stops them browsing the internet.

When you switch to DHCP, the DNS server setting is set to point at an external DNS server. This will allow internet names to be resolved and internet browsing will now work. However, you will no longer be able to resolve local names (in particular in the authentication process) and that will effectively stop you accessing local shares.

Personally I’d not only remove the Dot folder in DNS but also reconfigure your DHCP so that it gives out your local server as the primary DNS server to all the clients. Then use DHCP for IP addressing for all the client PCs.

No problem. I just thought it was worth suggesting an alternative.

Sometimes I’ve found myself strungling to tweak a solution to work when someone suggests a completely different way of attacking the problem and by changing track completely I’ve solve the problem much quicker.

No problem. I just thought it was worth suggesting an alternative.

Sometimes I’ve found myself strungling to tweak a solution to work when someone suggests a completely different way of attacking the problem and by changing track completely I’ve solve the problem much quicker.

I think an alternative way to do this would be to use a bit of javascript. In the page you are pushing the include into you could have the Javascript code declare the variable, assign it the value, and pointing it to the textarea. The processing (insertion of the text into the textarea) would then be done client side. In the parent document something like this:

var MyText=””
document.myform.myID.value=MyText

And then in the include document you will need to assign an ID to the textarea field:

With this set up the page would be assembled server side, then passed to the browser where the javascript would run and put the text into the textarea.

I think an alternative way to do this would be to use a bit of javascript. In the page you are pushing the include into you could have the Javascript code declare the variable, assign it the value, and pointing it to the textarea. The processing (insertion of the text into the textarea) would then be done client side. In the parent document something like this:

var MyText=””
document.myform.myID.value=MyText

And then in the include document you will need to assign an ID to the textarea field:

With this set up the page would be assembled server side, then passed to the browser where the javascript would run and put the text into the textarea.

On a private network there is nothing to stop you using 255.0.0.0 as a mask with 192.168.x.x. It will work. The simplest solution would be to change the mask on the statically addressed devices to 255.0.0.0. The only problem you may get is an inability to access sites with an IP address in the ranges 192.0.0.0 to 192.167.255.254 and 192.169.0.0 to 192.255.255.254, but that isn’t a commonly used address space. An alternative would be to use the private class A address space: 10.0.0.0.

On a private network there is nothing to stop you using 255.0.0.0 as a mask with 192.168.x.x. It will work. The simplest solution would be to change the mask on the statically addressed devices to 255.0.0.0. The only problem you may get is an inability to access sites with an IP address in the ranges 192.0.0.0 to 192.167.255.254 and 192.169.0.0 to 192.255.255.254, but that isn’t a commonly used address space. An alternative would be to use the private class A address space: 10.0.0.0.

I too have had fun and games with date formats in VBA due to the system often assuming that dates will be in US format mm/dd/yy. I spent an enjoyable hour or so tracing a date through a script to find that the problem came when the date was inserted back into the Excel cell. This is the line where the problem came:

wsReport.Cells(myCurrentRow, 2) = Jobdetail

Debug the script and within VBA, if jobdetail is a date then the format was dd/mm/yy. The worksheet (wsReport) was using dd/mm/yy too. But when I looked at the results the date format was dd/mm/yy but the data had the day and month swap round. So 10/8/03 (dd/mm/yy) would become 8/10/03 (dd/mm/yy) in the sheet. To get it to work I had to force the date into a format that Excel/VBA coundn’t confuse:

If IsDate(Jobdetail) = True Then
wsReport.Cells(myCurrentRow, 2) = Format(Jobdetail, “dd mmm yyyy”)
Else
wsReport.Cells(myCurrentRow, 2) = Jobdetail
End If

I too have had fun and games with date formats in VBA due to the system often assuming that dates will be in US format mm/dd/yy. I spent an enjoyable hour or so tracing a date through a script to find that the problem came when the date was inserted back into the Excel cell. This is the line where the problem came:

wsReport.Cells(myCurrentRow, 2) = Jobdetail

Debug the script and within VBA, if jobdetail is a date then the format was dd/mm/yy. The worksheet (wsReport) was using dd/mm/yy too. But when I looked at the results the date format was dd/mm/yy but the data had the day and month swap round. So 10/8/03 (dd/mm/yy) would become 8/10/03 (dd/mm/yy) in the sheet. To get it to work I had to force the date into a format that Excel/VBA coundn’t confuse:

If IsDate(Jobdetail) = True Then
wsReport.Cells(myCurrentRow, 2) = Format(Jobdetail, “dd mmm yyyy”)
Else
wsReport.Cells(myCurrentRow, 2) = Jobdetail
End If