>What the heck is a DDE conversation and why would setup want to have one with a desktop?
>
>Sometimes I get this error when testing setup and some of the people who install the program from my CDs also report this error. I click "Ignore" and everything seems to go along fine. The program runs. But it is annoying and to new users unsettling.
>
>I often find myself conversing with the wall but only when I'm really tired with the desktop.

As Ed mentioned, it sounds like an old installation program. To explain, under Win 3.1 (Win16) groups, and icons were created by initiating a DDE conversation with the Program Manager. For backward compatibility, Win32 has an invisible Program Manager window that the older programs can converse with using DDE in order to setup their folders under Start Menu/Programs. It does not, however, have any sort of method to create an icon on the desktop. This is because the desktop is a virtual folder, not a window separate like the PM. Further, a 16 bit app has no method of retrieving what the desktop folder is (since there can be multiple ones) simply because they didn't exist under Win 3.1.

Frankly, it sounds like someone tried work around this limitation using DDE rather than the Win32 Shell interface by using DDE.