&lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt; First of several <snips> in this msg... Sounds about right. Never tried VB myself, (well the beer, yes, that's ok) I have an assistant who is somewhat interested in using VB for righting apps. I had occasion to write a little PLC emulation for a dos box to replace a failing (and not Y2K compliant to boot) PLC that rings the bells at the school to announce change of class, lunch etc. It also controls the sprinkler system. Anyway, a couple days hacking around in Turbo Pascal 6 produced a simple little program that controls a few external devices on a time schedule via a $2 interface connected to the printer port. Runs on XT's and up, around 23k for the .exe file. Works fine. Just a text file with the schedule info in it. Too easy. My assistant thought that was ok, so he thought he'd try it in VB just as an exercise. At last count, it was something like a 650k exe file, needed at least 4 mb of ram, and he still hadn't found a way to get control over the bits in the printer port to let it actually do something useful!! He's still nibbling away at it, he's perssistant, so he'll probably make it go. Eventually. Been 6 weeks now though..... Pity it doesn't depend on it. Micro$oft producing non backward compatible software? Nah, couldn't believe that.... yeah, right. worse. thank Oh yes I would. I just drop kicked the last of our NT servers. 2 years of tinkering and updateing and god knows what else and it STILL kept screwing up a database. It's now my workstation. Running 98. The family resemblance is still a pain at times, but at least it only gives ME trouble, not half the darn school.. Doesn't sound like a fun weekend project. Best of luck. You'll need it. . On top of this, the pathetic Wasn't To Micro$oft Tech staff when you ring them at $25 a problem maybe. But I wouldn't even count on that. better. You've already lost if you have to run Windoze whatever. I'd switch to something more stable in a minute, but the sad part is that Windoze is everywhere, so we have to teach our students to use it and the apps that run on it, because that's what they will likely find in the real world.. The What planet is this guy from? Originally? Marketdroidia? He sounds like one of those funny creatures. me... It isn't only you. I think you have a couple of million mates globally. Minimum. Trust me on this. wrong. You are in absolutely no danger of that. Micro$loth bashing may become the all time greatest user participation sport of the 21st century. Just confirms much I already believed..... Cheers Geoff Roberts VK5KDR Computer Systems Manager Saint Marks College Port Pirie, South Australia geoffrob(a)stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au