you can't, there is nothing to support that in .NET The GC is based on (a slightly conservative) reachability or "life" analysis, not on reference counting. why would you need a reference count? if only for one or a few classes of your own, you could try and implement it yourself, including an override for the = operator. Not sure you can get it all tight though. :) Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles] DISCLAIMER: this message may have been modified by others; it may no longer reflect what I intended, and may contain bad advice; use at your own risk and with extreme care.