I second EdBick's situation as I am getting the same error when trying to use New on MapPoint.Application.

I had to resort to CreateObject() function to get around this problem, which is inconsistent with many MapPoint samples out there.

The other strange problem I couldn't resolve is why GetPictureFromObject() always returns some default map of the North-Western US region even if the actual map is totally different (and yes, I have saved it before calling GetPictureFromObject()).

Alex