Dmitry,

As Sergey was saying, you can still trap for the error in previous versions, and only create the object once:

local llError, lcOldError
lcOldError = on("error")
on error llError = .T.
poGpmPager = createobject("Pager.Send")
on error &lcOldError
if llError
    MessageBox("Couldn't create object")
    return -1  && return an error code
endif

* do your stuff with the object

>Thank you for the explanation, Sergey. One more reason to move up to VFP 8. Which I plan to do, anyway.
>
>>Dmitry,
>>
>>The brackets are needed because TYPE() function evaluates it's argument and the error isn't generated because TYPE() function intercepts it and returns "U". It would be quite easy to do in VFP8.

TRY
>>  poGpmPager = createobj("Pager.Send")
>>CATCH
>>  =messagebox( "problem" )
>>ENDTRY

In previous version you'll have to use local error handler to do the same.
>>