title: Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word "Cannot activate application"
body: <p>We are having a problem experienced by a few users when attempting to launch Word from our application via the office interop:</p>
  
  <pre><code>using Word = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Word;
  
  public void ShowWord()
  {
    _word = new Word.ApplicationClass();
    _word.Visible = true;
    _word.Activate();
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>If word is not always open a COM exception is thrown stating "Cannot activate application." Adding a <code>Thread.Sleep(1000)</code> before calling <code>_word.Activate()</code> prevents this, but obviously is not ideal.</p>
  
  <pre><code>public void ShowWord()
  {
    _word = new Word.ApplicationClass();
    _word.Visible = true;
    Thread.Sleep(1000)
    _word.Activate();
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Has anyone seen this before and knows what is causing this and what the right way to fix this is?</p>