This creates an instance of Word on the local machine from Excel 2000, US
English, Win 2K. I don't have a remote server to go against. But if this
works here, I suspect the problem with a remote server could be with
security settings. This article might give some insights:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;174024
DCOM95 Frequently Asked Questions
This article basically seems like it might have been the original source for
the code you found, but there are some differences which might be
significant. Your code makes some assumptions about early and late binding
and the use of the constant with a word guid seems strange if your not going
against word.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;180217&Product=vbb
HOWTO: Control Server Location in a Visual Basic Client
Event though an instance of Word can be seen in the task manager (and
terminated there), I couldn't do much with the variable X. It doesn't seem
to be the standard type of reference you get back from CreateObject. All
that said, under VBA6 (xl2000 and later), createobject has a second argument
for servername
CreateObject(class,[servername])
Option Explicit
Private Type GUID
Data1 As Long
Data2 As Integer
Data3 As Integer
Data4(7) As Byte
End Type
Private Type COSERVERINFO
dwReserved1 As Long ' DWORD
pwszName As Long ' LPWSTR
pAuthInfo As Long ' COAUTHINFO*
dwReserved2 As Long ' DWORD
End Type
Private Type MULTI_QI
piid As Long ' const IID*
pItf As Object ' IUnknown*
hr As Long ' HRESULT
End Type
Enum CLSCTX
CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER = 1
CLSCTX_INPROC_HANDLER = 2
CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER = 4
CLSCTX_REMOTE_SERVER = 16
CLSCTX_SERVER = CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER + CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER +
CLSCTX_REMOTE_SERVER
CLSCTX_ALL = CLSCTX_INPROC_SERVER + CLSCTX_INPROC_HANDLER +
CLSCTX_LOCAL_SERVER + CLSCTX_REMOTE_SERVER
End Enum
Private Const GMEM_FIXED = &H0
Private Const IID_IDispatch As String = _
"{00020400-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}"
Private Declare Function GlobalAlloc Lib "kernel32" _
(ByVal wFlags As Long, ByVal dwBytes As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GlobalFree Lib "kernel32" _
(ByVal hMem As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function IIDFromString Lib "OLE32" _
(ByVal lpszIID As String, ByVal piid As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function CLSIDFromString Lib "OLE32" _
(ByVal lpszCLSID As String, pclsid As GUID) As Long
Private Declare Function CLSIDFromProgID Lib "OLE32" _
(ByVal lpszProgID As String, pclsid As GUID) As Long
Private Declare Function CoCreateInstanceEx Lib "OLE32" _
(rclsid As GUID, ByVal pUnkOuter As Long, ByVal dwClsContext As Long, _
pServerInfo As COSERVERINFO, ByVal cmq As Long, _
rgmqResults As MULTI_QI) As Long
Private Declare Function lstrcpyW Lib "kernel32" _
(ByVal lpString1 As String, ByVal lpString2 As String) As Long
Public Function CreateObjectEx(ByVal Class As String, _
Optional ByVal RemoteServerName As String = "") As Object
Dim rclsid As GUID
Dim hr As Long
Dim ServerInfo As COSERVERINFO
Dim Context As Long
Dim mqi As MULTI_QI
mqi.piid = GlobalAlloc(GMEM_FIXED, 16)
' Convert the string version of IID_IDispatch to a binary IID.
hr = IIDFromString(StrConv(IID_IDispatch, vbUnicode), mqi.piid)
If hr <> 0 Then Err.Raise hr
' Convert the CLSID or ProgID string to a binary CLSID.
If ((Left(Class, 1) = "{") And (Right(Class, 1) = "}") And _
(Len(Class) = 38)) Then
' Create a binary CLSID from string representation.
hr = CLSIDFromString(StrConv(Class, vbUnicode), rclsid)
If hr <> 0 Then Err.Raise hr
Else
' Create a binary CLSID from a ProgID string.
hr = CLSIDFromProgID(StrConv(Class, vbUnicode), rclsid)
If hr <> 0 Then Err.Raise hr
End If
' Set up the class context.
If RemoteServerName = "" Then
Context = CLSCTX_SERVER
Else
Context = CLSCTX_REMOTE_SERVER
Dim MachineArray() As Byte
ReDim MachineArray(Len(StrConv(RemoteServerName, _
vbUnicode)) + 1)
ServerInfo.pwszName = lstrcpyW(MachineArray, _
StrConv(RemoteServerName, vbUnicode))
End If
' Create the object.
hr = CoCreateInstanceEx(rclsid, 0, Context, ServerInfo, 1, mqi)
If hr <> 0 Then Err.Raise hr
GlobalFree mqi.piid
Set CreateObjectEx = mqi.pItf
End Function
' To use the CreateObjectEx function, simply put the code into any
' Visual Basic module and then call it.
' The class can take the form of a
' programmatic identifier(ProgID) such as Word.Application or the
' equivalent CLSID (in this case,
' {000209FE-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}).
' Note that if a ProgID is 'supplied, the local registry
' is searched for the corresponding CLSID.
' This function could be enhanced to read the remote computer's registry
' instead.
' The optional RemoteServerName parameter references
' the computer on 'which the object is to be run.
' If a remote server name is not provided,
' the function creates the object on the local machine,
' analogous to the behavior of the standard CreateObject function.
' The RemoteServerName parameter can be set to the computer name
' of the remote machine, as in \\server (or just server),
' or the Domain Name System (DNS) name, such as server.com,
'
www.microsoft.com,
' or 199.34.57.30.
' The following code shows some sample invocations of the
' CreateObjectEx function:
Private Sub Form_Click()
Dim x As Object
' Create object on local machine.
Set x = CreateObjectEx("{000209FE-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}")
' x.Visible = True
Debug.Print TypeName(x)
End Sub
