Has anyone seen this before? I had a piece of code like:

LOCAL ox,lnDefault,lcData
TEXT TO m.lcData Noshow
h1,h2,h3,h4,h5
p1,1,2,3,4
p2,1,2,3,4
ENDTEXT
_cliptext = CHRTRAN(m.lcData,',',CHR(9))

  *** set the LOCALEID to English
  nlLocaleId=sys(3004)		&& Save local id
  =sys(3006,1033)
  ox = CREATEOBJECT('Excel.Application')
  WITH ox
    .WorkBooks.Add
	    With .ActiveWorkBook.ActiveSheet
	      .Range('A1').PasteSpecial
* ...

This application has been working for many years w/o any errors on hundreths of sites so far.
Yesterday I got a support request with error message attached:
"Unable to get PasteSpecial property of the range class"

Few hours ago I connected to the site to see it there (happens on a single computer). I discovered I could reproduce it:

-Open notepad (no excel is running)
-Type blah blah and copy
-Paste to verify there is something copied
-Open excel
-Clipboard data is lost (Edit\Paste is disabled, Ctrl+V doesn't do anything)

I was lucky that I could show them this happens w/o my application running.
Thinking of faulty hardware,virus,faulty excel installation and alike.

If you ever have seen this and know why happens I'd appreciate.
PS: XlStart is empty, no startup macro I could find.
TIA
Cetin