Thank you all!!
its was just one of those things, which now I find myself putting my palm to my forehead, and saying 'of course'

This is so simple, not having to use vb script with active x controls if all I want to do is open a word document within VFP.

having this working, now, I cant see much use in using active x - ole bound controls for displaying, or editing 'other' docs, etc... unless I want vfp to manulipate the data in one of those 'other' apps.

Bob Lee