oExcel = CREATEOBJECT('Excel.Application') oExcel.QuitNow according to the documentation this should clear all instances of the automation server. However, when I go to the Task Manager, there's Excel plain as day. I've tried oExcel = NULL and RELEASE oExcel in addition to the above. No difference. In fact the only way I've found to purge the existence of Excel from the task manager is to quit VFP entirely. This makes me think that there's an internal problem with VFP releasing the object reference.