>Viv
>Its opened and closed alternatively - i'm trying to get the program to discern its state from the code. are you getting different reads from outlook open and closed or the same read.

I'm afraid I don't understand your question. If there is no existing instance of the application the GetObject() line should throw an exception in which case the CreateObject() should create the instance (assuming Outlook is actually installed - you should probably trap for that possiblility as well)

And you didn't answer my question - if no exception is thrown what is loOutlook after the GetObject() line executes?