I previously suggested you confirm the need to use DDE; that is a most unusual requirement and I doubt it really is needed. Since you haven't posted any of the code you say you're already using, I can't comment further on that.

As for retrieving whatever the DDE connection uses, all you need do is run the macro I provided after doing that setup manually. If you do it before and after, you should be able to retrieve both the non-DDE SQL query string and the post-DDE connection string.

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Cheers,
Paul Edstein
[Fmr MS MVP - Word]