COM is another, older, term for Automation, which is probably MS's
preferred terminology these days. It's a technology supported by Visual
Basic and the Microsoft Office applications that enables one application to
work with another application's objects. So an Excel app can
create/read/write a Word document. The most common example you might see
here is Excel sending mail via Outlook using COM/Automation .

It was around with 97, and is still with us in 2003. It is an MS technology,
but there are other vendors that support COM/Automation as well, as it
allows them to use the MS apps and not have to write that function
themselves.

--

HTH

Bob Phillips
... looking out across Poole Harbour to the Purbecks
(remove nothere from the email address if mailing direct)

"L3Tech" wrote in message
...
Thanks
I got it to work.
For my info, what is COM?
I am using excel 97. Is this something new?

Bob Phillips wrote:

If it is not COM (let's assume it is not) then test as I showed, and if
not
there then Shell it. Here is an example using the Calculator program

On Error Resume Next
AppActivate "Calculator"
If Err.Number < 0 Then
Shell "C:\Windows\system32\calc.exe"
End If

You will know the path and app name for Shell, you can check the app by
starting it and see what is in Task Manager.