>Is there a function either in vfp or win32 that will tell a program
>if there is already a copy of Word running. Thanks

Eric;
When I was doing some DDE stuff, I would check to see if an app is running by attempting to initiate a DDE session. If it came back with failure, I'd simply launch the EXE and then try again.

.=DDESetOption("Safety", .F.)
.* Is WP Running?
.m.lnChannel=DDEInitiate("WPWin8_Macros","Commands")&& Open a channel
.IF m.lnChannel<0
. RUN \\LSH_1\SYS\APPS\WPWIN.EXE
. m.lnChannel=DDEInitiate("WPWin8_Macros","Commands")&& Try again to open a channel
. IF m.lnChannel<0 && Still not started?
. WAIT WINDOW "Word Perfect must be running!"
. RETURN
. ENDIF
.ENDIF