“trust” this share before any client applications will be able to request data from the shared application.
An important thing to remember is that each user of the host PC must trust the share for the DDE Server if View Nodes are to be able to access data from the server. If you log off the host PC and a new user logs in, they will need to trust the DDE Server share before any View Nodes can access data. A user may or may not be able to create and trust shares, depending on their user level at the host PC; if they log in as a “guest”, they won’t have sufficient access privileges to create and trust shares.
If this sounds intimidating, don’t worry. To make setting up NetDDE quick and easy, PMCS has an automatic configuration utility. If you prefer a more
Automatic NetDDE Setup: VNDDE.EXE
The NetDDE Share Utility (VNDDE.EXE) automates the process of setting up shares on Windows 2000 SP2. It is recommended over the manual process for speed and ease of use.
Overview
The NetDDE share utility was created to simplify creation of DDE shares on Windows 2000 SP2.
This utility automatically checks to see if a share exists for the DDE Server. If the share already exists, it is automatically trusted. If no share exists, the utility creates a DDE share for each version of the GE PMCS DDE Server (it doesn’t matter which version is installed on the host PC) and then trusts the share. The share has default properties that allow it to operate without additional setup. You can modify the share’s properties once it is created, but you shouldn’t need to, in most cases.
As mentioned previously, once a share is created it must be trusted by each user of the host PC. The consequence of this is that if a new user account is created and the user logs on with the new account, the shares will not be trusted and requests from remote clients will be rejected by the NetDDE share manager. The NetDDE share utility addresses this problem by automatically trusting the share for the current user.
The PMCS installer program places a shortcut to the VNDDE.EXE utility in the Windows 2000 SP2 "All Users" Start Menu>Programs>Startup, so that the utility will run automatically each time a user logs in.
The utility
The utility’s file name is VNDDE.EXE, and it should be located in directory
c:\ge_pmcs\tools\. It is an NT/2000 command prompt application and executes in a DOS command window. There aren’t any
If the shares already exist and are trusted, the utility does nothing. No message is displayed.
DDE Server User’s Guide | Chapter Three - Getting Started • 25 |