>

* If you do something like
>
>m.loExcel = CREATEOBJECT( "Excel.Application" )
>
>* can you then reliably check if it was instantiated successfully with
>
>IF TYPE( "m.loExcel" ) == "O" AND NOT ISNULL( m.loExcel )
>  * Invocation successful
>

>
>Related question - Excel 2007 is installed in the dev VM. For test purposes is there an easy way ( short of uninstalling the product ) to temporarily tweak Excel so it won't instantiate successfully?

You need to put createobject in try/catch block.