>Do I need to upgrade to WIN95 if I want to exchange data and execute commands/operations between VFP and Excel/Word? Or can I just stay with WFW3.11 and perform the desired operations?
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> Thanks!
There should be no problems using OLE automation WFW 3.11. I haven't tried Excel yet, but I have an application that uses OLE automation from VFP 3.0 to generate mail merge documents using Word. The users are using WFW 3.11. The application just uses CREATEOBJECT to start Word and then executes Word's methods to open the document and print the mail merge.

I would suggest building a class to act as the interface between your application and Word. The application interface changes radically from Word 6 to Word 97. The class insulates the application from the changes by providing a consistent set of methods for the application. I created a generic OLE automation class with a Word 6 sub--class. When we are ready to move to Word 97 we will create a Word 97 sub-class and instantiate this instead of the Word 6 class. We use an INI setting to specify the class to use for Word.