Conference utrop1::linkworks_v3

2190.0. "OLE problem with VB + LNX on Alpha/NT" by ESME::SPENCE (Bugs? You mean insects?) Thu Apr 10 1997 13:57

Hi - I'm trying to develop an application on a DEC 2000
running Windows NT 4 and LinkWorks 3.0.8. I'm running
the LinkWorks server on this machine; I'm also running
the client on this machine. My own application is designed
to show the integration of LinkWorks with legacy systems,
and so uses DCE and our Service Broker to communicate with
some legacy systems (actually All-In-1). So, I'm using
Visual Basic 5.0 for Alpha (it's a beta kit) and Visual C++
4.2 for Alpha. All the middleware stuff works perfectly.
The APO/MCC for retrieving information about the installed
software components works fine (my application is quite
similar to the standard While You Were Out exercise).
However, when I try and execute the lnx.AppendAlias
method, the LinkWorks client goes into a permanent tight
loop, using virtually all of the CPU.

My visual basic code at this point looks like:

    If APOLogin(vbVEmpty, vbVEmpty, vbVEmpty) Then
        Set lnx = CreateObject("LNX.Application")
        If FindLnxSwc("WICID", ThisSWC) Then
            lnx.AppendAlias "HasFirearms", ThisSWC + "HasFirearms"
            SaveButton.Enabled = True
        Else
            lblMessage = "WICID Software Component not installed - Save disabled"
        End If
    Else
        lblMessage = "LinkWorks not running - Save disabled"
    End If

The FindLnxSwc routine returns a valid string for the software component:

	ThisSWC = "[email protected]:"

Eventually Visual Basic times out and throws up a dialog box:

	Component RequestPending

An action cannot be completed because a
component (Desk "Instructor": Cameron Spence
(system admin account)) is not responding. Choose
"Switch To" to activate the component and correct
the problem.

To try and isolate the problem, I used a different OLE
operation: instead of AppendAlias, I tried to get the
reference of the currently opened compound object, using

	set <variable>=lnx.GetObject ("Current")

This also caused the LNX client to hang.

It looks like there is a general problem with using OLE
under Windows NT 4 on Alpha/AXP accessing the LinkWorks
client. Has anyone ever got this to work? Does this qualify
as a bug? Any ideas on workarounds?

Thanks,
	Cameron