>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>Why not simply check the registry for the appropriate key?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>
>IMO, because some genius may have 'deleted' Word or somehow screwed it up w/o properly unistalling it, i.e. the existence of a registry key does not assure it will work.

Alex (and Larry too),

There's a number of ways to check to see if the user has blown away the application. For example, you could check the registry for the application, get the CLSID and then use that to find the LocalServer. Additionally, you could use FindExectutable() in Shell32 and then check for the presence of the file returned. This is just a personaly prefence. I hate having to rely on the error handler to check the validity of these things.