Thanks Dave, Just the sort of answers I was looking for. I still think corporates who have just upgraded to windows 7 will stick on it for quite a while. I'll probably upgrade one of the PCs in our house to get to have a play with it again. Cheers Andy

Hi Dave, I've got a genuine question which you might be able to answer for me. I'm still trying to spot something that is a genuine reason for me to upgrade. You have clearly got used to the things that trouble a newbie to the OS. I'm intrigued to know what would you really miss about Windows 8 if you had to go back to Windows 7? Thanks very much, Andy

Hi Bram, These guys might be worth giving a call to get you started: http://www.ultramagicard.com/applications/data-encoding/swipe-cards/?R=0 [^] Probably not the cheapest option, but would definitely result in a professional looking solution. Best regards, Andy

Hi Navaneeth I personally I think "C# in depth" by Jon Skeet knocks the socks off the Nutshell book. I was actually going to post that it was the best software book I'd ever read before I saw that you'd already mentioned it. I'd spent a long time programming in Java, and like many Java advocates, used to look down a bit on C#. C# in depth helped take my development to another level, such that I now honestly believe that C# is a better language then Java. All the best, Andy