Failed to create COM object : Access is denied IIS6/PHP/FastCGI

[shankwheat]

We have been running PHP 5.2.6 on IIS 6 without any issues but recently upgraded PHP to version 5.3.2 and FastCGI and can no longer create Excel files.  The only "solution" I've been able to find so far is to set the application pool to the local system account which seems like a security disaster waiting to happen.  I don't know what else to try. Thanks

 

<?php

$excel = new COM("Excel.Application") or die("Unable to instanciate excel");

?>

 

 

Uncaught exception 'com_exception' with message 'Failed to create COM object `Excel.Application': Access is denied