Thank you, Sergey and Fabio.

(1) I want to determine if Word is installed on the user's machine, not a server. I have not yet tried to modify the server-oriented code suggested by Sergey.

(2) I tried the CREATEOBJECT("Word.application") approach, but I have encountered a problem. My machine does NOT have Word or Excel installed, but loWord = CREATEOBJECT() still instantiates an object (with loWord.Name = "Microsoft Word")!! My machine DOES have the OpenOffice suite installed, with the DOC file type associated with OpenOffice Writer. I also have the XLS file type associated with OpenOffice Calc -- and the same thing occurs: CREATEOBJECT("Excel.Application") successfully instantiates an object with Name = "Microsoft Excel"!!

Hmmmm....

(NOTE: My machine is a near-new Toshiba Satellite laptop running Win 7 Home.)

-m.