Well, I'm just plain stumped. I get type mismatch errors early on trying to
save the calculation mode of excel object and a different error when trying
to set it to manual:

Dim CalculationMode As Variant
Private StatusBarSetting As Boolean
Dim xl As Excel.Application
Dim Argv As Variant

Sub Main()
Dim n As Integer
Dim sArgv As String

Argv = Parse_Args(5)
sArgv = ""
For n = 1 To UBound(Argv)
sArgv = sArgv & Argv(n) & vbCrLf
Next n
MsgBox "Arguments found: " & vbCrLf & sArgv
Start_Excel
Quit_Excel
End Sub

Private Sub Start_Excel()
Set xl = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
If Err.Number < 0 Then End
Call SaveSettings
End Sub

Private Sub Quit_Excel()
RestoreSettings
xl.Quit
Set xl = Nothing
End Sub

Private Sub SaveSettings()
'On Error Resume Next
If xl Is Nothing Then
MsgBox "Internal error!!! xl is Nothing!"
End
End If
xl.Interactive = False
xl.AskToUpdateLinks = False
CalculationMode = xl.Calculation <<-- type mismatch error on this
statement but don't know why.
xl.Calculation = xlCalculationManual <<- error 1004 on this
statement, "Method 'Calculation' of object '_Application' failed and don't
know why
StatusBarSetting = xl.DisplayStatusBar
xl.DisplayAlerts = False
xl.Cursor = xlWait
xl.ScreenUpdating = False
xl.DisplayStatusBar = True
End Sub


Ken Shaffer