>George
>
>The saga continues !
>
>I've just uninstalled IE5 (by Add/Remove programs and reverting to previous version - which was IE4). At this point - CREATEOBJECT("shell.application") worked fine.
>
>I then updated to IE5 (from VS SP3 disk) and now CREATEOBJECT("shell.application") doesn't work again !
>
>Am I missing something ?
>
>Regards
>
Anna,

I would say that what happened was that the IE 5.0 install overwrote the Shell32.dll. Normally, when a new version of a DLL exists on the target machine, the installation program warns you and recommends that you keep the file on your machine. I would hope that the this would be done by checking the version number rather than the date/time stamp. However, if you didn't get such a warning then maybe it did. I really don't know anything else.

The first thing I'd do is check the version number of that file (Shell32.dll). If it's the right version (4.71 or later) then you might trying running RegSvr32 against it (or DllRegisterServer). FWIW, Win98, WinME, and Win2K all install the Active Desktop and the Shell.Application. With all you're going through and upgrade might be easier (and possibly cheaper in terms of time and money).