Word COM lifecycle

Word is started in a dedicated task with Visible=false and alerts disabled. The service opens a working copy, performs one operation, updates fields, repaginates, saves, closes the Document, quits the Application, and releases owned COM objects in finally.

The prototype does not run as a Windows Service, does not kill unrelated WINWORD.EXE processes, and does not execute macros. Production hardening should add an explicit serial queue and PID-scoped orphan check.