GetActiveObject

Win32::OLE->GetActiveObject(progid)

Creates an object for a currently active instance of a server, if one exists. If the server is registered, but no instance of it is running, the method returns undef. If the server is not registered, the method will croak.

You should probably call GetActiveObject inside an eval so that you can do exception handling in the event that the server is unregistered or is not currently running. If the method returns undef, you can just create a new instance of the server and the object with new.