Gavin,
While I can't explain the problem (it exists with NT 4 and SP3 of VFP as well), a workaround is to issue a oWord.Quit before releasing the variable (although you probably figured that out by now *s*).

>Hi All,
>
> I'm having a problem when creating instances of Word 2000 through VFP6.0 SP4.
>
>I am doing the following:
>
>oWord = CreateObject("word.application")
>
>* Rest of code
>
>RELEASE oWord
>
>I would have thought that the instance of Word would have disappeared after the RELEASE, but it remains. I can create Outlook and Excel objects using the same syntax and they disappear after issuing RELEASE.
>
>Any Ideas?
>
>Thanks,
>Gavin...