I found the solution for office 2003, I hope it works for 2007 ;)
Change the following key in the registry (start - run, regedit)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\ActiveX Compatibility\{248DD896-BB45-11CF-9ABC-0080C7E7B78D}
"Compatibility Flags"=dword:00000000
This disables killbits for the winsock control. Should you wish to use other controls (activeX) in excel (or any other ofice product for that matter), search the class id for that control and chech it's flags in this registry key.
I found the solution here:
http://groups.google.com/group/micro...252635e022bb41
Greetings,
Peter.