sudden problem Generating Excel Spreadsheet

[Nat Grauman]

Hi,
I have an ASP app that generates several excel spreadsheets from a sql db
for user download. It's been working fine for quite some time, but all of
a sudden when I click on the link and the dialog box opens asking me whether
I want to "Open This File From Its Current Location" or "Save This File To
Disk", the Run From Location option is dimmed (unavailable) and when I select
the Save option, I get a message saying IE "cannot open the site. It's either
unavailable or cannot be found. Please Try again."

I know this sounds somehwat complicated, but can anyone tell me why (first
of all) the "Run From Location" option would be unavailable? That seems like
a clue to the problem.

Secondly, why the error is occuring at all? There are several files that
are linked this way, they all seem fine, and they've worked fine up until
a few days ago. Other than this problem the application is functioning normally.

Thanks in advance to whomever can shed some light....

-Nat "Scratching My Head In Louisville" Grauman

[Harish Mohanbabu]

Hi,

First of all, please refrain from automating MS Office (server-side) directly
from non-interactive clients like ASP because Office may exhibit unstable
behaviour when run in this environment. Office has quite a list of limitations
if automated from such an environment like -

- resource intensive (in terms of memory, usage of global resources, etc)
- server side security

For more detailed info, please refer to KB Article Q257757.

Instead of directly accessing MS Office, you can think about using 3rd party
components or you can write your own wrapper classes and access Office through
this. In couple of my earlier projects, I had used Excel Writer from Soft
Artisans for generating Excel Docs with data populated from MS SQL Server.
I had pretty good experience with it.

And coming to your question - which version of IE are you using?

- If you are using IE 5.5, please consider updating to SP2
- Also, please make sure that you specify "Content-Type" bit.

Also, please refer to KB article Q238588 and see whether it helps.

Thanks,
Harish

"Nat Grauman" <natgrauman@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>Hi,
>I have an ASP app that generates several excel spreadsheets from a sql db
>for user download. It's been working fine for quite some time, but all of
>a sudden when I click on the link and the dialog box opens asking me whether
>I want to "Open This File From Its Current Location" or "Save This File
To
>Disk", the Run From Location option is dimmed (unavailable) and when I select
>the Save option, I get a message saying IE "cannot open the site. It's either
>unavailable or cannot be found. Please Try again."
>
>I know this sounds somehwat complicated, but can anyone tell me why (first
>of all) the "Run From Location" option would be unavailable? That seems
like
>a clue to the problem.
>
>Secondly, why the error is occuring at all? There are several files that
>are linked this way, they all seem fine, and they've worked fine up until
>a few days ago. Other than this problem the application is functioning normally.
>
>Thanks in advance to whomever can shed some light....
>
>-Nat "Scratching My Head In Louisville" Grauman

[nat]

Thank you very much! Your commments were very helpful.

"Harish Mohanbabu" <HarishM@MailCity.Com> wrote:
>
>Hi,
>
>First of all, please refrain from automating MS Office (server-side) directly
>from non-interactive clients like ASP because Office may exhibit unstable
>behaviour when run in this environment. Office has quite a list of limitations
>if automated from such an environment like -
>
>- resource intensive (in terms of memory, usage of global resources, etc)
>- server side security
>
>For more detailed info, please refer to KB Article Q257757.
>
>Instead of directly accessing MS Office, you can think about using 3rd party
>components or you can write your own wrapper classes and access Office through
>this. In couple of my earlier projects, I had used Excel Writer from Soft
>Artisans for generating Excel Docs with data populated from MS SQL Server.
>I had pretty good experience with it.
>
>And coming to your question - which version of IE are you using?
>
>- If you are using IE 5.5, please consider updating to SP2
>- Also, please make sure that you specify "Content-Type" bit.
>
>Also, please refer to KB article Q238588 and see whether it helps.
>
>Thanks,
>Harish
>
>"Nat Grauman" <natgrauman@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>Hi,
>>I have an ASP app that generates several excel spreadsheets from a sql
db
>>for user download. It's been working fine for quite some time, but all
of
>>a sudden when I click on the link and the dialog box opens asking me whether
>>I want to "Open This File From Its Current Location" or "Save This File
>To
>>Disk", the Run From Location option is dimmed (unavailable) and when I
select
>>the Save option, I get a message saying IE "cannot open the site. It's
either
>>unavailable or cannot be found. Please Try again."
>>
>>I know this sounds somehwat complicated, but can anyone tell me why (first
>>of all) the "Run From Location" option would be unavailable? That seems
>like
>>a clue to the problem.
>>
>>Secondly, why the error is occuring at all? There are several files that
>>are linked this way, they all seem fine, and they've worked fine up until
>>a few days ago. Other than this problem the application is functioning
normally.
>>
>>Thanks in advance to whomever can shed some light....
>>
>>-Nat "Scratching My Head In Louisville" Grauman
>