Question about Public types, functions, etc

Hi all.

I have a program that calls Excel from another application, does some data processing and closes Excel. For some extremely mysterious reason, the system doesn't remove the Excel object from memory after the application has run.
I have checked, double checked, triple checked, quadruple checked, quintuple checked.. you get the idea. I am releasing all Excel related objects. I don't have any "global" references to Excel, I've used late binding on all the Excel objects, etc.

I'm only left to believe that it's something entirely not related to Excel that is left as a remnant that prevents my program from being completely removed from memory.

My best guess is a little module that declares an open file dialogue function from the comdlg32.dll. Being completely new to programming I didn't write this function and only understand enough of how it works to get what I need.
So, aside from a possible solution to my problem, I'm also looking for an explanation of type defining, public v. private function declaration, and all the other things included in the sample code below.

I am including the declarations section of the module. This seems to me to be the root of my problems and lack of understanding..

VB Code:

Option Explicit
Public Type WinFileName
 lStructSize As Long
 hwndOwner As Long
 hInstance As Long
 lpstrFilter As String
 lpstrCustomFilter As Long
 nMaxCustFilter As Long
 nFilterIndex As Long
 lpstrFile As String
 nMaxFile As Long
 lpstrFileTitle As String
 nMaxFileTitle As Long
 lpstrInitialDir As String
 lpstrTitle As String
 flags As Long
 nFileOffset As Integer
 nFileExtension As Integer
 lpstrDefExt As String
 lCustData As Long
 lpfnHook As Look
 plTemplateName As String
End Type
 
Public Declare Function GetWinFileName Lib "comdlg32.dll" Alias _
     "GetOpenFileNameA" (pWinFileName As WinFileName) As Long
Public Declare Function GetSaveFileName Lib "comdlg32.dll" Alias _
     "GetSaveFileNameA" (pWinFileName As WinFileName) As Long
 
Public Const OFN_ALLOWMULTISELECT = &H200&
Public Const OFN_EXPLORER = &H80000
Public Const OFN_FILEMUSTEXIST = &H1000&
Public Const OFN_HIDEREADONLY = &H4&
Public Const OFN_PATHMUSTEXIST = &H800&

There it is. So I'm thinking that because these things are declared as public, they aren't going out of scope and causing my program to poo poo out.
Thoughts?

Thanks

Is there any reason you're not using Excel VBA's builtin File Save and File Open? This would probably be a simpler way to do it.

I would imagine that somewhere within the "calls Excel from another application, does some data processing and closes Excel" part of your code could be the issue. Can you post this code?

thanks
sugarflux