Hello, Thanks for all the help (especially Mr. Chuck.) I found the problem. This one is rather embarrassing, but interesting so I thought I'd let the group in on it. I was racking my brain thinking what the hell could enforce permissions outside the standard Win2K user stuff. Then I remembered. A while back I installed Network Associates VirusScan Console software in order to be able to connect from the outside into my client site. I shut it off and reran the test. Worked like a charm. Here's the pertinant diagnositic program: CODE:

C:\Documents and Settings\dln1\My Documents\White Papers\AANC>type tes
+t2.pl
use strict;
use Win32::OLE qw(in with);
use Win32::OLE::Const 'Microsoft Excel';

$Win32::OLE::Warn = 3; # Die on Errors.

my $excelfile = 'C:\tmp\Book1.xls';

# VERIFY EXISTENCE
print "LISTING $excelfile\n";
print `dir $excelfile`;

my $Excel = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject('Excel.Application')
        || Win32::OLE->new('Excel.Application', 'Quit')
            || die Win32::OLE->LastError();

   $Excel->{DisplayAlerts}=0;

#my $Book = $Excel->Workbooks->Open($excelfile) or die
my $Book = $Excel->Workbooks->Add() or die Win32::OLE->LastError();

Win32::OLE->LastError();

print Win32::OLE->LastError();
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OUTPUT:

C:\Documents and Settings\dln1\My Documents\White Papers\AANC>perl tes
+t2.pl
LISTING C:\tmp\Book1.xls
 Volume in drive C is LOCAL DISK
 Volume Serial Number is 9C3D-51DA

 Directory of C:\tmp

10/30/2002  10:17a              13,824 Book1.xls
               1 File(s)         13,824 bytes
               0 Dir(s)   8,263,262,208 bytes free
Win32::OLE(0.1502) error 0x80070005: "Access is denied"
    in PROPERTYPUT "DisplayAlerts" at test2.pl line 17
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