ID: Q189498
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While Visual Basic offers more powerful, robust and reliable intercommunication between programs with OLE, it still supports the older Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) technology. You can use DDE to link to and share data between applications.
Using OLE to communicate with other applications is better than using DDE with Visual Basic. OLE offers you better performance than DDE does.
If a program supports OLE Automation, it exposes an "Object Model" that allows you to manipulate the program through code to perform actions for you.
Dynamic Data Exchange is more useful in communicating with older applications which might not support OLE. Many old 16-bit applications fall into this category.
It is highly recommended that you use OLE rather than DDE when developing your Visual Basic application to communicate with another application
MSDN contains documentation on DDE methods/properties/events supported within Visual Basic 6.0. In MSDN, set the "Active Subset" to "Visual Basic Documentation," select the "Index" tab, and type in DDE. The topics not grayed out are applicable to Visual Basic 6.0.
In Visual Basic 5.0, select "Books Online" under the "Help" menu. When Books Online appears, select "Index" under the "View" menu. When the Index search browser appears on the left, type in "DDE."
Additional query words: kbVBp500 kbVBp600 kbVBp kbdss kbDSupport kbDDE kbOLE KB16BITONLY
Version : WINDOWS:5.0,6.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfoLast Reviewed: January 20, 1999