ASP and Excel docs

[debbierich22]

I have a website where one of the requirements is opening Excel documents inside the browser window. The user clicks on a hyperlink and the document opens, using a simple Javascript function to open:

function openSheet(path,fName,fType,fMonth,fYear,ffType,fftpPath) {
open("ftp://psm/" + ffType + "/" + fYear + "/" + fMonth + "/" + fType)  	
open(path + fType + "/" + fName)	
}

I was running IIS 3.0 and IE 5.5 until last week. When the user clicks on the link, the variables at that time are passed to the function and the Excel sheet would open, no problem.

Last week I upgraded to IIS 4. I changed no code. The IIS upgrade is the only change that has been made to the server (that I know of.) Now, here is where it gets weird. The website can no longer open the Excel document.

The error I receive is:

 "Microsoft Excel cannot access the file 'xxxxx'.  There are several possible reasons:
     The file name or path does not exist.
     The file you're trying to open is being used by another program."

This is weird because if I use the computer on which I developed the website, there is no problem. (And it's not a cached page or something. It's fresh and it's correct.)All other computers get this error, even the server where the documents are stored!

I thought maybe there was a problem accessing the document. For example, the development computer has a shared drive with the server. So on a different computer, I mapped to the share on the server. Same error!

Is it possibly because of the Excel version on the local computer? This wasn't an issue with IIS3, why would it be with IIS4? Any ideas what is going on here? Any examples of how I can open an Excel doc regardless of the version of Excel on the local computer?

Thanks.

 

[link9]

I suppose it's possible that the permissions on the directory have changed?? Other than that, I would re-apply the latest version of MDAC on the computer, and see if that might clear it up.

If that doesn't work, re-apply the latest service packs. When upgrading certain things on NT, things tend to get hosed and you have to re-apply many of your other patches that you have applied in the past to get your server back up to specs.

Question, though... why upgrade to IIS4 when IIS5 is out, as well? Just curious.

good luck!
paul

 

[debbierich22]

Thanks so much for the reply.

After the upgrade, one of the first things that I had to change was the permissions. IUSR no longer had write access to the database or to underlying files. I have since corrected this problem.

I do know that the latest version of MDAC was re-installed after the upgrade. As to your question about upgrading to IIS 4 versus IIS 5, I am a contractor and have very little final say concerning the network or the server.

Is there any concrete evidence you can give me concerning re-installing service packs that might convinve the networking "gurus" to follow that path?

Thanks again.