Application.HinstancePtr property (Excel)

Returns a handle to the instance of Excel represented by the specified Application object. Read-only Variant.

Syntax

expression.HinstancePtr

expression A variable that represents an Application object.

Remarks

This property returns a correct handle in both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Excel. It extends the functionality of the Hinstance property of the Application object, which only works correctly in the 32-bit version of Excel.

The ideal data type to use with this property is the LongPtr data type. Assigning the value returned by this property to a LongPtr variable will work as expected in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Excel. The property is defined as Variant for internal implementation reasons. However, it always returns a 32-bit value on 32-bit systems and a 64-bit value on 64-bit systems.

This property only works starting with Excel, and is only required with the 64-bit version of Excel. If you must write code that will also work with earlier versions of Excel, in order to avoid compilation errors, read this property under an #if Win64 conditional compilation directive, and use the Hinstance property under the #else directive.

Note that this property works fine in both 32-bit and 64-bit environments starting with Excel. Therefore, if your code is intended to be used only with Excel or later, either 32-bit or 64-bit, it can read this property without conditional compilation.

For more information about how to use VBA in 64-bit environments, see 64-bit Visual Basic for Applications overview.

Example

In this example, a message box displays the Excel instance handle to the user.

Sub CheckHinstance() 
    MsgBox Application.HinstancePtr 
End Sub

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