I would look at the following article:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;291445


DDE is an old component of Windows (to all intents and purposes). It isn't
really a format converter, but is a set of facilities for program-to-program
communication. In theory, DDE has been superseded by other technologies
(e.g., OLE Automation) but in practice it is still sometimes the only way to
do certain things. Unfortunately, it also seems rather flaky (on most of the
systems I've worked on it has been OK, but once it goes wrong it seems to go
/really wrong.

Peter Jamieson

"Sheila D" wrote in message
...
Hi

I am using Win XP, Word 2003 and Access XP/2002 and have the apparenty
common problem with linking to a parameter query in Access. I have tried
the
Confirm Conversion at Open route which allows me to choose MS Access
database
via DDE BUT I then get the message 'could not re-establish a DDE
connection
to MS Access'

So my question is - is this an incompatibility problem, a Windows problem
or
what. Not sure where the DDE converter comes from - Windows or Office but
can't find anything on Office 2003 CD to help.

I have a 2nd PC running Win XP and Office XP and got the same query to
work
on that using DDE connection route and both machines are up to date with
SP2
so don't think any difference in Windows set up. Any help would be much
appreciated.

Sheila