>
>Could you elaborate more on this approach? Any code sample?
AFAIR it is quite well explained in the vfp help.
You should use createobjectEX and perhaps define all variables "AS ....".
(I am not sure that the define as is a necessary part for early binding or if it is only necessary for the IDE - vfp variable structure makes me guess the former.)
If called this way and as soon as the vfp IDE shows the COM pem's during editing it is IMHO safe to assume early binding is in effect.

There is also an older article in MSDN on vfp, performance and COM showing that if each object has to be discovered across COM [loCOM.Tables[1].Sheet[1].Cell[i, j] or something similar from excel] in a single line this can put a serious damper on performance. I think the article was still vfp6 based and put only forward as tip the hint to set a object reference "down the line" of the COM object.

Instead of

for lnRun = 1 To
  lctext = loCOM.Tables[1].Sheet[1].Cell[i, lnRun]
endfor

use

loObj = loCOM.Tables[1].Sheet[1]
for lnRun = 1 To
  lctext = loObj.Cell[i, lnRun]
endfor

How the "for each" works in this aspect (you have to "get" the object FROM COM as well: DUNNO <g>.
Here I'ld try walking explicitly [via index] across the lowest, already early bound COM object reference.

HTH

thomas