Posted by Chung Leong on 05/01/07 23:41

On May 2, 12:20 am, reedko <ree...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm running WinXP,IE6.0 on my workstation and have a local server
> running WInXP,Apache 2,MySQL 5,PHP 4.
>
> I wrote this script to grab certain addresses from distribution lists
> in an Outlook 2003 address book and throw them into a MySQL table.
>
> It worked when I tested it in UltraEdit Studio and it works when I run
> it from the command line. But I need to run it from a browser or have
> the browser batch it to the server to run from the command line.
> When I tested it from a browser while the Outlook 2003 client was
> running on the server, it gave me this error:
>
> 'Failed to create COM object `Outlook.Application': Server execution
> failed
>
> So I build a little snippet to run some tests:
> <?php
>
> $ol = new COM("Outlook.Application","localhost");
> $ol='';
> print "done!";
> ?>
> and save it as testcom.php.
>
> It works from the browser as long as the server doesn't have an
> Outlook client open. But I need the client to be open sometimes.
>
> If the Outlook client is open and I run it from the command line on
> the server it works fine.
>
> C:\PHP\php testcom.php
>
> C:\PHP\php.ini and C:\windows\php.ini are identical.
>
> I'm pretty sure I need the Outlook client open to get to the address
> book. Our exchange server is Electricmail.
>
> Does anybody have any ideas on what is happening, how to get around it
> or how to fix it? THanks for any input.
>
> Reed

I would suggest accessing the address book over ADODB (through JET)
instead of using Office automation. Trying to control an Office app in
a server application is always going to be hairy. Accessing the data
store is relatively easy, on the other hand, with Jet as it provides a
SQL interface.

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