>I'm trying to access the Shell.Application object to use the CopyHere method among others - but when I issue
>
>oshell = CREATEOBJECT("shell.application") I get the message
> "OLE error code 0x80040154: class not registered"
>
>If I try to register (or unregister) shell32.dll I get the following message
> "c:\winnt\system32\shell32.dll was loaded, but the DllRegisterServer entry point was not found.
>DllRegisterServer may not be exported or a corrupt version of c:\winnt\system32\shell32 may be in memory. Consider using PView to detect and remove it"
>
>I'm running NT4 SP4.
>
>On my other PC - running Win95 there's no problem creating "shell.application"
>
>Can anyone help please ?
>
Anna,

The Shell.Application is tied to the Active Desktop. The error you're seeing is the result of the correct version of the Shell32.dll not being installed. As I mentioned in my article in the August, 2000 VFUG newsletter, you need to check two things in order to determine if it's available. First, you need to check the registry for the presence of the Shell.Application key under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT. Even if it's found, however, it doesn't mean that it's available for use from within VFP. I've seen Win95 machines, for example, with this key, but not having the correct version of the DLL in order to make it work. If the key is present, you then need to check the version number of SHELL32.DLL. This functionality is supported in versions 4.71 or later.

I'm not sure if any of the NT SPs after 4 install the Active Desktop (which would make the object available. Perhaps someone else can jump in with that information. However, on a Win 95 box, IE 4.01 has to have been installed. If a clean install, for example of IE 5.0 or later has been done, you have to uninstall that version, install 4.01, then re-installed 5.0 or later.