When attempting to link the PaXcel add-in into Excel, after clicking the browse button and selecting the Paxcel?.xla file and then clicking the OK button on the Excel Add-in’s screen, I receive the message “PDIPaXcel?.dll (where ? is the version number) missing. This should be installed into a directory in the path environment.”

There are various possible reasons for this error.

1. The most likely cause of this error is that the underlying database engine for Pastel Accounting?, viz: Pervasive, is not installed or corrupt. Ensure that Pervasive or Btrieve is installed. The best way to ensure this is the case is to install PaXcel on a computer running Pastel. It is also possible that the Pervasive installation is corrupt in some way. We would recommend in such cases to uninstall and reinstall the Pervasive software.

2. Check that the system folder (normally “C:\Windows”, is indeed part of the path environment and that the file in question, pdipaxcel?.dll, is, in fact, in that folder. Go to a command prompt and type the command “Path” to do this. This will return a string showing the various folders in the path environment. Using Windows Explorer, make sure that the pdipaxcel?.dll file is indeed in one of these folders (default installation would have placed this file in “c:\windows” or the equivalent system folder such as “c:\windows.”

3. The pdipaxcel?.dll file is corrupt. This may have occurred due to the download of PaXcel itself becoming corrupt. Try downloading PaXcel again and reinstalling, but only after uninstalling the previous copy. When uninstalling, ensure that the file pdipaxcel?.dll in the c:\windows folder and PaXcel.xla in the \PDI Spirit\PaXcel folder has been deleted before reinstalling. Should you not be able to download a fresh copy of PaXcel from our website, contact us for a demo CD, which we will gladly post to you.