Just want to add to your discussion that even doing plain:
*----------------
objexcel=createobject("excel.application")
objexcel.quit
*---------
may be not enough to make Excel go away.

If you enter those two lines manually from command VFP window, what happens?

>>>They hang around fro me if you actually DO anything with them. Just creating and releasing they do go away. XP/SP1 and Excel2K2.
>>
>>yup, you are correct, how interesting. i realy never tried this. strange that it would work if you do not do any processing.
>
>It's probably similar to a "dangling object" in VFP. If you don't do anything with the Excel object, it doesn't create any internal references to anything. If you do something with Excel, it probably makes some internal objects that only a ox.Quit() releases properly.