>>>>>BTW, the slow closing happens only on some machines, and only if there is no internet connect. I could not find any specific reason for that. The only cure might be re-installing Office and/or Windows, but that same problem could of course occur at a client, so that would not really be a solution we could offer.
>>>>
>>>>You shouldn't need to task kill Word, it will "kill itself" when there's no more reference to it, IOW when your application exits.
>>>
>>>that I cannot reproduce. If I instantiate the object, and close VFP, the Winword process stays there until I kill the task in the task manager.
>>
>>It turns out that you are right, much to my surprise. I am not sure, but I don't think that was the case with older Word versions. I checked Excel, and is released automatically.
>
>Now I am surprised as well, because I thought Excel behaves the same as Word, but you are right, it releases the process when the reference is cleared. Good to know, at least I don't need to worry for closing Excel.

Ah, things from my memory bubbles up! I remember using this construct many years ago, when I did a lot of automation. This solution will make sure that the number of Word tasks won't increase unnecessary:

Try
   loWord = GetObject(,'word.application')
Catch
   loWord = CreateObject('word.application')
Endtry