ms access - Active X Error With Excel 2016 And Late Binding

Question

I have Microsoft Office 365 Business installed on my PC and am attempting to run Access VBA to create an Excel Object. This is my Access VBA syntax I am using

Dim xl As Object, wb As Object, ws As Object, ch As Object

Set xl = CreateObject("Excel.Application")

However, it hits the CreateObject line and throws the image below, but ONLY on my PC running Office 365 Business. If I run this same syntax on a computer running Office 2010 it executes exactly as it should and creates the Excel Object error free.

What must I change in order to be able to run this syntax with Microsoft Office 365 Business?

EDIT
This is the only Registry Key that I see - it is close, but not exactly what was stated in the comments.

Answer 1

One option would be to check to see if the CLSID exists before trying to call CreateObject. You can use the ole32.dll function CLSIDFromString to test it (this is also used by VBA internally for CreateObject and GetObject calls):

'Note, this is the 32bit call - use PtrSafe for 64bit Office.
Private Declare Function CLSIDFromString Lib "ole32.dll" _
    (ByVal lpsz As LongPtr, ByRef pclsid As LongPtr) As Long

You can wrap it in a simple "exists" test something like this:

Private Function ClassIdExists(clsid As String) As Boolean
    Dim ptr As LongPtr
    Dim ret As Long
    ret = CLSIDFromString(StrPtr(clsid), ptr)
    If ret = 0 Then ClassIdExists = True
End Function

This lets you test for classes before you try to create them (and avoids using the error handler to catch bad CLSIDs):

Dim xl As Object
If ClassIdExists("Excel.Application") Then
    Set xl = CreateObject("Excel.Application")
ElseIf ClassIdExists("Excel.Application.16") Then
    Set xl = CreateObject("Excel.Application.16")
Else
    MsgBox "Can't locate Excel class."
End If