Opening Two Instances of an Application - Advice Please

I am running Windows XP Pro

I have a two monitor installation arrangement configured to be independant
screens to which I can drag window to one or the other.

I can open two separate instances of Excel 2003 Via Start | Run | and
entering "excel" for each instance of excel I would want to compare.

I have google to find out if this is the correct and only way to run two
instances of an application but the results are vague.

Question 1
Can anyone adive me how the method above works?

Question 2
What other methods can be used to achieve two instances of an application
running.

"Dermot" <Dermot.DeleteThis@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:2A6052C3-99EF-4EAF-9201-A023867C394A@microsoft.com...
>I am running Windows XP Pro
>
> I have a two monitor installation arrangement configured to be independant
> screens to which I can drag window to one or the other.
>
> I can open two separate instances of Excel 2003 Via Start | Run | and
> entering "excel" for each instance of excel I would want to compare.
>
> I have google to find out if this is the correct and only way to run two
> instances of an application but the results are vague.
>
> Question 1
> Can anyone adive me how the method above works?
>
> Question 2
> What other methods can be used to achieve two instances of an application
> running.
>

Whether you can run two instances of an application depends on
the way the application is written. You can open several instances
of Word or Excel, or Notepad, or Outlook, but not of Outlook Express.

What do you actually want to "compare"?