>>I think (have not confirmed, but this is based on some understanding of the basics of COM at a lower level than we need to deal with from VFP), the CREATEOBJECTEX() is actually doing a CoCreateInstanceEx() call, and it excts to receive a CLSID as an argument.

You're correct here. Off the subject, but I recently read a VB article that some VB guru had written that details how to write a function that encapsulates all of the API calls necessary to use CoCreateInstanceEx and gain an actual object reference in VB, bypassing the built in VB late binding mechanics. It was pretty funny reading this 4 page article about all this VB code that gives a VB programmer a function that's already built into VFP. We, for once, have the good end of the deal.

Incidentally, I read a rumor that VB 7 will finally get its own CreateObjectEx() function.