How to run Excel-DB? Running Excel-DB can be done in several ways. If you run Excel-DB for the first time please use the menu item provided in your computer's start menu: Start | Programs | SQL XL. You can alternatively find sqlxl.xla in the installation directory and double click on it. Using File|Open in Excel will do exactly the same: opening up sqlxl.xla in Excel.

When you have started Excel-DB it will bring up Excel and display the Excel-DB menu in Excel. Before it can do this it will show a message if you would allow Excel-DB to execute macros. Please enable Excel-DB to use macros otherwise nothing will happen.

All further actions within Excel-DB are evoked from the Excel-DB menu.

If you use Excel-DB again in the future you will notice that the Excel-DB menu item is left behind in Excel. Whenever you open Excel the Excel-DB menu is there. When you click the menu item for the first time it will load Excel-DB into Excel.

Problems with the trusted electronic signature Excel-DB is digitally signed with a Thawte trusted digital signature. The signature enables you to use Excel-DB in Excel with the security setting of high.

I cannot login to my database with Excel-DB but I can do so using SQL*Plus

Some users report that the connection details that connect SQL*Plus to the database do not work in Excel-DB. Also connecting to the local database using 2: or local does not work whereas it does work in SQL*Plus.

You can do 2 things about this. One is to use an alternative connection type. As standard Excel-DB uses the OO4O driver. You can use Excel-DB ADO to connect to databases using ODBC and OLEDB. This way you bypass some of the issues with configuring OO4O. The second thing you can do is to verify you have the right configuarion settings. The remainder of this page will discuss this further.

SQL*Plus uses a different connection technique than Excel-DB does. In order for Excel-DB to connect to the database you need to create a database alias in the tnsnames.ora file. You can use a utility (by Oracle) called SQL*Net Easy Configuration to do this. Recently Oracle changed the name of this utility to NET8 Assistant. Otherwise you can edit the tnsnames.ora manually. If you are not sure what you're doing ask your DBA.

When you are running multiple Oracle homes (look at your path variable on the PC, are there multiple oracle/bin directories specified?) then you are required to have the Oracle home you wish to use - for which you are changing the tnsnames.ora file - first in the path.

What do I need on my PC to run Excel-DB?

If you can't get Excel-DB to work please check this page to see whether you run the correct environment on your PC. To run Excel-DB you need the following on the client PC. You do not need anything special on the database servers.

• Oracle Client for Oracle 7 or better or install the Oracle Instant Client
  (only if you try to connect to Oracle databses)
  You need either the full Oracle home or the much smaller Oracle Instant Client software.
  If you need the Oracle Client software speak to your local database administrator. You can download the free Oracle Instant Client software from technet.oracle.com. Note that You can only connect through ODBC using the Oracle Instant Client whereas you can choose between OO4O, OLE DB or ODBC when you have the full Oracle client installed.
  
  
• Oracle Objects for OLE (OO4O)
  (only if you try to connect to or Oracle databses)
  If Excel-DB complains about the OO4O setup of missing files for OO4O please install it again. It is available for free from Oracle at http://technet.oracle.com in the software drivers section.
  You can also connect to Oracle through OLE DB and ODBC. Please configure a new ADO connection. For those without a full Oracle Client installed, you can use the much smaller Oracle Instant Client.
  
  
• OLEDB or ODBC
  (only if you try to connect through Excel-DB ADO)
  In order for Excel-DB to connect using the Excel-DB ADO software and use ODBC or OLEDB you need to have installed the ODBC and/or OLEDB drivers. On most PCs this is already installed as part of the operating system (MDAC: see www.microsoft.com/data). Refer to the connection help for details how to connect to your database.
  
  
• Windows95 or better
  Right click on the my computer icon on your screen. Properties tells you which version of windows you are running.
  
  
• Excel 97 or better
  In Excel see the help about dialog.

How do I uninstall Excel-DB?

Uninstalling Excel-DB:
You can uninstall Excel-DB from the Add/Remove Software applet in your control panel.

To remove the menu items and toolbar in Excel:
Right click anywhere on an empty part of an Excel toolbar
Choose Customise
Select the Excel-DB toolbar and press the delete button
Select the main Excel worksheet toolbar and press the reset button

Excel-DB error log

Excel-DB stores information in the windows event log. All critical warnings and errors are logged there. This can be convenient in the case that you need to communicate with us what problem you have experienced. In this topic I will explain where to find the Excel-DB log entries and how to send them to us.

Using the event viewer.
Go to Start | Run... and type the following command
eventvwr.msc /s The event viewer application will open. There are three log sections: Application, Security and System. The Excel-DB log entries are created in the Application section. The items in the application section have a property called Source. When looking for Excel-DB items, the source is VBRuntime because Excel-DB was created in Visual Basic. When you double click a log entry it will reveal more details.

To save the entries in your event log please right click the application section. Choose Save As and enter a file name. Please send this file to us for further analysis.