Neat. Thanx for the history and insight. I'll have to have a closer look at the code at a later date.

>>Another method that, IMHO is simpler, to try is the following:
>>
>>oWord = ""
>>mcerror = ON('ERROR')
>>ON ERROR *
>>oWord = createobject('Word.Application')
>>ON ERROR &mcerror
>>
>>IF TYPE('oWord') = 'O'
>> Word exists do rest of code
>>ENDIF
>
>Yes, this is certainly the simpler method, however it has no capacity for finding out *why* the server wasn't found. Let me give you a little history of how the CheckServer function came into being...
>
>Imagine the user calling: "Your stupid app doesn't work. It says Word doesn't exist, but it does. I can click on my icon and it works. Your program stinks." (Suffice it to say this is a paraphrase!) After a protracted series of phone calls where "power user" *assured* me that nothing changed (and repeatedly mentioned how much he thought my program was a dismal failure), I finally figured out what he did (by repeatedly making the CheckServer function more complex). It turns out that this "power user" decided to move Office's program directories out of Program Files into some directory off of the root. The "power user" knew enough to change the paths for his shortcuts, but he didn't know enough to update the registry (which isn't something you do manually, anyway).
>
>As I posted it to Guillaume, the CheckServer function can easily be modified to give a number of detailed error messages, like "Word has not been installed on this machine" (registry entry not found), or "Word needs to be reinstalled on this machine to correct the registry entries" (the registry entries exist, but the file it points to is missing -- what idiot moved/deleted it?). It is very surprising to find out how many times the error "Word needs to be reinstalled" comes up on "power user's" machines. I'd rather let them solve their own problems because of detailed error messages, than try to deal with irate phone calls from BEUs who claim they "didn't change a thing!"
>
> - della
>
>* BEU = Bozo End User