Awesome! It appears that someone would have to get up really early and spend a lot of time to get any question by you Sergey. You are an amazing individual, so glad you are out there to answer these type of questions. This is exactly what I need to send a message to the user if Excel is already open. The process I wrote is so intensive my instructions state to be sure that all other apps are down first, but you know there will be exceptions and that is why I needed this code upfront. Thanks again!

>See http://www.berezniker.com/content/pages/visual-foxpro/check-if-exe-running-and-optionally-terminate-it
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>>Before I kick off a process I need to know if there is an instance of Microsoft Excel already running. If there is I want to inform the user to shut it down before proceeding.
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>>I was thinking that GETOBJECT(,"Excel.application") might be a good way but while testing, my session of VFP locked up. Is there a Windows API that cand do this? Again, I am testing upfront as a precautionary measure, I have no desire to use an existing Excel reference - just want to have the user start with a clean slate.