Todd,
I ran into this with Office 97 too. The only solution I could find (to be able see the Word menu, etc.) was to turn the .Visible property off then back on as follows:
loWord = CREATEOBJECT("WORD.APPLICATION")
loWord.Visible = .T.
loWord.Visible = .F. && Do this gyration to be able to see Word menus.
loWord.Visible = .T.
Mike C.
>As with our version of fox pro (3.0) we are a bit dated here. Its the Office 97 version. Hopes of upgrading are somewhere beyond there horizons at this time.