Yes, I also played with that. I have 3 MDI child forms at the moment, one of them has NO menu at all, and the other two have 'MergeType' set to Add, each of them with the appropiate MergeOrder value, but the problem is the same, the Menu from the Main form keeps disappearing. Anyway, after a couple of hours more trying to fix it, I decided to use the MenuBar provided in the user interface suite we generally use (Janus controls). I am reluctant to use them because these fancy UI controls are memory swallowers, but for this MDI problem they work, so to hell with VS MainMenus. Thanks for the reply though, Dr Ashok.