Right you are! The FindWindow API lets you search by window class or exact window title, or you can use EnumWindows and check title bar text for a partial match.

I was trying to point out the potential pitfalls without being too wordy (or too discouraging - there might be a better way to do it;). The original snippet grabs the existing instance of Excel if it is running. If it was already open and the user closes the document, Excel is still running. Or if the end user forgets to close Excel (or maybe just minimizes it and thinks it is closed) Excel is still running - with the same Window class, maybe even with the same window title.

I did something like this once in VB and it turned into a major support headache for me.

In reply to Re: Re: Re: Excel and OLE by jsprat
in thread Excel and OLE by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.