Multiple Excel Instances

[markinpt]

To get around the lack of multi-threading in Excel, I am using multiple instances of Excel Applications. One instance is controlling the other instances via VBA but I would like to be able to check if an instance is done running a macro. I have read that the Application.Ready method is not all that reliable and from what I can tell, it returns true even though the instance is running a macro.

Is there something else I can use to determine if an Excel instance is busy running a macro?

If I attempt to run a macro on an instance that is already busy running a macro using application.run method, it seems to just ignore the call and skip over it. I would like the main instance to wait until one of the instances becomes idle before continuing.


Thanks

[OllieB]

I have created/used something similar where I would use one dedicated worksheet for communication between the instances. If a job was running in a child/batch job it for example would set a value in cell A1 which I could read from the parent workbook, and I have also used a concept where I would have a 'communication worksheet' in the parent workbook and each child workbook would maintain its status on a different row of the parent workbook. Using the latter concept I could easily control up to 10 Excel child instances running in parallel. I used VBScripting for the child processes which would open an instance of Excel.

[markinpt]

Thanks, that's kind of what I am doing now but I just thought I might be missing a property somewhere which would tell me if the macro was running in an instance.