MMcC, it is fairly easy to get multiple apps running from one VBA application. VBA is inherently single-threaded but using shell you can start as many new process as you have memory for. In addition, you can communicate between the separate processes. For example, I have a file manager program that is written in Excel that has the option of doing the specified file operation(s) such as copy, move, rename or delete files and/or folders within the currently running instance of Excel or it can spawn a new instance of Excel and do them separate from the current instance. In fact, you can spawn as many of these as you want. I have also seen this technique used to do many web searches at one time. Yes there is some overhead by starting new instances of Excel, Access, Word, etc. but it is really not that much (maybe 20mb) in today's multiple gigabyte systems. It is a handy way of effectively multi-tasking from within VBA (same code works in VB6 too). I could upload some code to show you how to do this if you are interested.