Comments on: Excel Programming and IgnoreRemoteRequests http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/ Thu, 08 Jan 2009 21:14:12 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Alex Krenvalk http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-28590 Alex Krenvalk Fri, 09 May 2008 09:23:59 +0000 http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-28590 For work with MS Excel files there is-<a href="http://www.recoverytoolbox.com/repair_excel.html" rel="nofollow">excel fix</a>,may try to open the necessary *.xls, *,xlt, *.xlsx, xlsm, *.xltm, *.xltx, *.xlam file and see an error message on the screen instead of it: Microsoft Excel unable to read file, This file is not in a recognizable format, etc,recover data after viruses, problems with media (a hard drive failure, a corrupted CD or DVD, etc.), errors in transferring the file via the LAN or the Internet, etc. For work with MS Excel files there is-excel fix,may try to open the necessary *.xls, *,xlt, *.xlsx, xlsm, *.xltm, *.xltx, *.xlam file and see an error message on the screen instead of it: Microsoft Excel unable to read file, This file is not in a recognizable format, etc,recover data after viruses, problems with media (a hard drive failure, a corrupted CD or DVD, etc.), errors in transferring the file via the LAN or the Internet, etc.

]]> By: Rod http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-7766 Rod Fri, 27 Jul 2007 01:12:09 +0000 http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-7766 Bingo!! I was having issues with and Excel addin of mine, and your blog triggered me to find a hack to fix it. I knew what Excel was doing and why I was having issues with the ignoreremoterequests, but while reading this page the lightning bolt appeared. Create one instance of Excel, set the IgnoreRemoteRequests to True, create a second instance of Excel, set the IgnoreRemoteRequests of that object to false, close the second instance and you are good to go. The initial instance retains the ignore setting default for new instances of excel restored back to the default. It does slow your addin a small amount by creating the second instance, but at least for my addin, it was not significant enough to affect performance. I do a significant amount of Excel addin work and I have to agree, Excel is a powerful API and for many areas it is a great solution. But it is also VERY fragile. Thanks for the tip, and I love Lookout by the way!! Rod Bingo!!

I was having issues with and Excel addin of mine, and your blog triggered me to find a hack to fix it.

I knew what Excel was doing and why I was having issues with the ignoreremoterequests, but while reading this page the lightning bolt appeared.

Create one instance of Excel, set the IgnoreRemoteRequests to True, create a second instance of Excel, set the IgnoreRemoteRequests of that object to false, close the second instance and you are good to go. The initial instance retains the ignore setting default for new instances of excel restored back to the default.

It does slow your addin a small amount by creating the second instance, but at least for my addin, it was not significant enough to affect performance.

I do a significant amount of Excel addin work and I have to agree, Excel is a powerful API and for many areas it is a great solution. But it is also VERY fragile.

Thanks for the tip, and I love Lookout by the way!!

Rod

]]> By: mike http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-7427 mike Wed, 18 Jul 2007 08:38:20 +0000 http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-7427 Harsh, yes, but this API is the definition of fragile. In fact, I'd say it is outright dangerous. Imagine the following use case, which is perfectly normal: 1) Create an excel addin to compute pi, or do some long operation which uses this flag. 2) Power fails (user decides to reboot, power goes out, whatever) 3) When you reboot, Excel won't load any spreadsheet. You just get a blank screen - no error messages, nothing. Just broken. Since you aren't running your automation anymore, you don't suspect it is your program which caused it.... Excel does not provide any API which works around this case. You are required to set the flag in order to run your automation (otherwise the automation can fail if the user happens to start Excel while running the automation), and yet by setting the flag, a power-outage will completely and permanently break your Excel application. Yikes! BTW - if anyone knows how Microsoft intended automation programmers to use this API in a manner which doesn't have this brittleness, I'd love to hear it and post the solution. As for me being a fragile programmer - absolutely! We can definitely agree about that! :-) Harsh, yes, but this API is the definition of fragile. In fact, I’d say it is outright dangerous. Imagine the following use case, which is perfectly normal:

1) Create an excel addin to compute pi, or do some long operation which uses this flag.

2) Power fails (user decides to reboot, power goes out, whatever)

3) When you reboot, Excel won’t load any spreadsheet. You just get a blank screen - no error messages, nothing. Just broken. Since you aren’t running your automation anymore, you don’t suspect it is your program which caused it….

Excel does not provide any API which works around this case. You are required to set the flag in order to run your automation (otherwise the automation can fail if the user happens to start Excel while running the automation), and yet by setting the flag, a power-outage will completely and permanently break your Excel application. Yikes!

BTW - if anyone knows how Microsoft intended automation programmers to use this API in a manner which doesn’t have this brittleness, I’d love to hear it and post the solution.

As for me being a fragile programmer - absolutely! We can definitely agree about that! :-)

]]> By: Charlie http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-7396 Charlie Tue, 17 Jul 2007 15:08:29 +0000 http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-7396 Calling an API fragile seems a little harsh. Maybe it's the programmer who's too fragile to pursue the ramifications of changing an application property. I mean, it is an APPLICATION property, no? Sorry, but I think inadequate testing was the real problem here. ("...a few days later..."? "...completely broken..."??) Now I'm sounding too harsh. Oops. :/ It doesn't surprise me that an application setting would be saved upon closing. Would I have done it differently at MS? Maybe. Maybe I would've included another property called Application.IgnoreRemoteRequestsTempory or something like that, but it's not that big of a deal to reset a property to what it was (i.e. save the original value before changing it) before quitting the application. Calling an API fragile seems a little harsh. Maybe it’s the programmer who’s too fragile to pursue the ramifications of changing an application property. I mean, it is an APPLICATION property, no? Sorry, but I think inadequate testing was the real problem here. (”…a few days later…”? “…completely broken…”??)

Now I’m sounding too harsh. Oops. :/

It doesn’t surprise me that an application setting would be saved upon closing. Would I have done it differently at MS? Maybe. Maybe I would’ve included another property called Application.IgnoreRemoteRequestsTempory or something like that, but it’s not that big of a deal to reset a property to what it was (i.e. save the original value before changing it) before quitting the application.

]]> By: Pariah http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-1589 Pariah Thu, 25 Jan 2007 19:14:19 +0000 http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-1589 Isn't it Microsoft's fault that it looks bad? It's no surprise Microsoft can't make its own programs stable enough to not break on a poor plugin. That's Microsoft. I expect more quality out of Google than Microsoft. Isn’t it Microsoft’s fault that it looks bad? It’s no surprise Microsoft can’t make its own programs stable enough to not break on a poor plugin. That’s Microsoft. I expect more quality out of Google than Microsoft.

]]> By: mike http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-505 mike Fri, 08 Dec 2006 04:57:45 +0000 http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-505 Sorry to offend. I just write about topics that comes up. On that day, I was actually doing excel programming. If you check for this particular error in usenet, you'll see a *lot* of other people have the same trouble. So the reason I posted was to share that experience, and the solution. It's pretty scary when you are doing a side project and then when you go to do some real work, excel has stopped working :-) For fairness, it should be pointed out that I was using excel because there really isn't anything else comparable out there. Open Office is good for the basic spreadsheets, but it can't be scripted very well - or at least I don't know how to do it. Sorry to offend. I just write about topics that comes up.

On that day, I was actually doing excel programming. If you check for this particular error in usenet, you’ll see a *lot* of other people have the same trouble. So the reason I posted was to share that experience, and the solution. It’s pretty scary when you are doing a side project and then when you go to do some real work, excel has stopped working :-)

For fairness, it should be pointed out that I was using excel because there really isn’t anything else comparable out there. Open Office is good for the basic spreadsheets, but it can’t be scripted very well - or at least I don’t know how to do it.

]]> By: Andy Joelin http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-484 Andy Joelin Wed, 06 Dec 2006 03:03:47 +0000 http://www.belshe.com/2006/11/29/excel-programming-and-ignoreremoterequests/#comment-484 So now since you joined google, everything that Microsoft does looks bad and that google does, looks right. :) Keep it fair Mike. So now since you joined google, everything that Microsoft does looks bad and that google does, looks right. :)

Keep it fair Mike.

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