If you set the visibility of excel to false and then set loExcel to null

Ex:

loExcel = CreateObject('Excel.Application')
loBook = loExcel.ActiveWorkBook
lcFileName = "C:\Pam\statusreports\May-Data Man.xls"
loExcel.Workbooks.Open(lcFileName)
loExcel.Visible = .T.


loExcel.Visible = .F.
* Closes the workbook
loExcel.WorkBooks.Close
*Releases the application
loExcel = .Null.


Thanks
Darren