Thanks for your reply. I don't think this article is saying that OpenDataSource is necessary, I think it is just saying that it may be getting used incorrectly and thereby causes a similar issue (select data source vs. a dialog asking permission to query the data source, which is what I was getting).

I hate to disagree with you here, but what the article is saying is that internally, the office applications in XP and later handle data differently than they did in earlier versions and that if you want the old code to work, you have to do the equivalent of "SET BACKWARDCOMPATIBLE ON".

It makes no statement about whether themethod is necessary or not.