Foggy Bottoms,

First off, that is a unique and though provoking name.

IMPO, it may be more work than it is worth to go looking in the registry. I agree that typeing 'Excel.Application' is a pain in the back side so here are a couple of UNTESTED alternatives...

First Method

# use Constants
use constant EXCEL => 'Excel.Application';
use constant WORD => 'Word.Application';

my $excel = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject(&WORD)
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Second Method

#Use another package
package MSApps;
{
  our $MSApps::EXCEL = 'Excel.Application';
  our $MSApps::WORD = 'Word.Application';
}

## Then
use MSApps;
my $excel = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject($MSApps::EXCEL)
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Third Method

#Do the most simple thing: create variables.
my $EXCEL = 'Excel.Application';
my $WORD = 'Word.Application';

my $excel = Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject($WORD)
[download]

UpdatE: Eccentric reformating

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Kristofer Hoch

Si vos can lego is, vos es super erudio