>>31 should mean that there's no application associated with the file. If the buffer that's being passed to the function isn't re-initialized, you could be seeing the results from the previous call to the function.
>>
>>Care to post a sample of what's going on Bruce?
>
>Sure, George:
>
>

>declare long FindExecutable in "shell32.dll" ;
>string cFile, string cDirectory, string @cResult
>
>cBuffer = space(255)
>nRetVal = FindExecutable("important.xls",'\\SMDSRV3\Sampling\Application\Executable' , @cBuffer)
>if nRetVal < 32
>  messageBox("You don't have Excel installed, sorry.",64)
>  return
>endif

>It runs okay somethimes, but not others. When I changed 32 to 31, it always seems to run fine. However, I have not tested it on a machine without Excel, and I'm concerned that may cause a problem.

Bruce,

Anything less than or equal to 32 is an error. 31 is SE_ERR_NOASSOC. 32 is SE_ERR_DLLNOTFOUND, which means pretty much what it says. If it helps, here are some of the error constant definitions:

#define SE_ERR_FNF              2   && file not found
#define SE_ERR_PNF              3   && path not found
#define SE_ERR_ACCESSDENIED     5   && access denied
#define SE_ERR_OOM              8   && out of memory
#define SE_ERR_SHARE            26  && A sharing violation occurred.
#define SE_ERR_ASSOCINCOMPLETE  27  && Filename association isn't complete or invalid.
#define SE_ERR_DDETIMEOUT       28  && DDE Transaction timed out
#define SE_ERR_DDEFAIL          29  && DDE Failure
#define SE_ERR_DDEBUSY          30  && DDE Busy
#define SE_ERR_NOASSOC          31  && No application associated
#define SE_ERR_DLLNOTFOUND      32

I should point out that many of these would only apply to using ShellExecute.