[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Novell and Excel

legg@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au (Christian Legg) (01/17/90)

  I'm having some trouble with Excel and Novell Netware that I am hoping
someone has already come across (and fixed!). I have installed Excel with
the run time windows on the server and it works fine provided that I launch
it from the command line when I am in the directory that it resides in.
Trying to start it up from a user's directory doesn't work - the server hums
for a bit, accesses WIN200.BIN in the Excel directory and then returns the
user to the command line.

  This originally sounded like a path problem, but checking the Novell mappings
and the PATH variable all seems in order - each path contains a search drive
letter corresponding to the user's home directory and Excel's directory (in
that order). Consultation of the reference manual has provided no new insights
to my problem - according to it, I have done everything that is needed path-
wise. I have also checked that all of the files in the Excel directory are
open as sharable, read-only files.

  I think that the problem involves the WIN200.BIN's use of the WIN200.OVL
file, for copying this file into the user's directory fixes this problem and
allows Excel to be started from the user's home directory.

  I have patched around this problem by assigning a spare drive letter to
the Excel directory on the server, then having a batch file change to this
drive, execute Excel and change back again. It works, but users have to
change drives from the open file requester to open files in their home
directories. Does anyone have a better solution, or idea of what the problem
actually is?

  thanks in advance

      Christian Legg

 University Computing Services,            *   'The man who can smile when
 University of Adelaide, South Australia.  *   things go wrong has found
                                           *   someone to blame it on'
 ACSnet : legg@sirius.ucs.adelaide.edu.au  *   Jones's Law

starry@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (01/18/90)

Some software instead of searching the path directories look for an
enviroment variable and uses that as a path.  In the case of Excel it
may be looking for an enviroment variable called

excel=x:\excel

this is a possibility but I am not sure since I do not know Excel very
well.

Joseph J. Starry
starry@silver.bacs.indiana.edu