>This works:
>

>Dim request As WebRequest = WebRequest.Create(_ur_l)
>Dim response As WebResponse = request.GetResponse()
>Dim reader As IO.StreamReader = New IO.StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream())
>Console.WriteLine(reader.ReadToEnd)
>

>My (currently absent colleague) wrote a webservice that works fine in Excel vba. You run the webrequest function with an ("GET"like) url and it returns a value. He told me that he returns the value in a php echo statement, and I can see it when I navigate the url from a browser.
>
>In vb.net I execute a webrequest.create and then a request.GetResponse. But I do not find the value.
>
>Cannot ask what I'm missing, because I guess I'm showing my ignorance on the matter, but can anybody put me on the right track?

Listen to the actual request sent over the wire via network sniffing tool or proxy on your machine. Been quite some time since I did that (HTTP was not banned to force HTTPS), so for current tools Google or look through West-Wind.