>Let me expand a bit on where I want to go with this because having to add the class name defeats the purpose. I want to be able to let the user select a file and then just do a GETOBJECT() to open the appropriate program, Word, Excel, etc.

So all you want to do is open the file in the appropriate program? If that is all, why not use ShellExecute API function? Let me know if you need some sample code, if this is what you want.
John