I suspect that the version that most apps use is from an API that is not available to COM calls. The ones that are are probably just wrappers to the API anyway. I dropped file open dialog in vbscript into google and found references to UserAccounts.CommonDialog, SAFRCFileDlg.FileOpen and Shell.Application in the first 4 results.

Maybe someone should make a single UDF that tries all the possible objects in order of usefullness, transparently to the user..

cj