Your suggestion is... germane?(relevant and appropriate).

However, that's what the VBScript does.
If you're not familiar with VBScript, Windows has a Visual Basic Script engine
(actually two, wscript.exe and cscript.exe)
It's actually a poor-man's Visual Basic compiler.
It has much of the functionality of Visual Basic, but it doesn't have forms.
I've got several of these that do things like:
-Load data from an ASCII file into an Oracl database.
-List files from a CD and write the list to a text file for search libraries.
-Locate folders for document numbers (I maintain 400,000+ documents in 250,000
folders. Rather than have user "drill down" through the folders to locate the
files they want, they just enter the document number, and the VBScript
determines the folder where the file is stored and opens the folder. Or, if not
found, it searches the archives and reports if the file has been archived)

For this application, I use the VBScript to locate the files on their "home"
server and copy them to my local server, then "clean up" the files (fields are
padded with spaces, and use a "pipe" (|) delimeter). At this point, it launches
the Excel application which uses it's own 9,000 lines of code to do it's
"magic".

As you suggested, I used the Task Scheduler to schedule the VBScript to run at a
specific time of day, then reboot the machine.

This works great.. as long as I "lock" my workstation when I leave for the day.
When I come in the next day, my machine is waiting patiently for me to log in,
and all is right with the world (at least my boss's world).

Problems arise when I (gasp!) take some vacation time! (or am sick).
Now, I tied the VBScript to my vacation schedule, so that if I'm scheduled to be
off, the script skips the reboot cycle (too bad I.T. guys, you can yell at me
when I get back from my fishing trip, right after I reboot my machine)

So, as you can see, the problem is NOT with running VBScript when I'm logged
off.
That runs nicely, thankyouverymuch.

The problem is that, if I am not logged in on the workstation, the VBScript runs
until it launches Excel. At this point, the process "hangs up". The process is
still RUNNING, but not going anywhere. Hence, my suspicion is that Excel is
requiring a "User Interface" to function.

Now, with this long-winded explanation, I'm sure I've lost many of the readers.
What I'm hoping for is to find someone who's run Excel in an "unattended" mode.

Thanks for your input.
Like I e-heard you mention in another posting: "compared to someone who has used
it for
decades, I'm new, too." I've used Excel macros for.. well, almost decades
(started with Lotus 123 back in the 80's!!!), and I'm still learning new things.