I only mentioned Word, since the spell checker there works. I am opening a modi memo field, then using Edit, Spell check within VFP.

If you are using VFP to instantiate a word object and then use Word's spell checker, then you may have some kind of .DLL conflict with the COM system.

If I remember this correctly, I encountered a version problem with OLEAUT32.DLL that interfered with VFP calling out to Word via COM. Getting the correct version solved the problem. (There were other files related to this, OLEPRO32.DLL and ASYCFILT.DLL, but I think it was OLEAUT32.DLL that was the key.)

There is info on the Microsoft Knowledge Base about this (the article was not specific to VFP or WORD; it's a COM problem).