Thanks, Wes. I was able to resolve the problem by installing Visual Studio 2012 Express and recommended components, removing the offending line from the Microsoft.Cpp.Platform.targets file (double-clicked error message), and compiling as Release.

And another one because I did. I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!

Hi again, I happened to require detection of memory stick insertions (in C# again), and experimented a bit more. My conclusion is the app needs a window that is shown, non-minimized, possibly off-screen, and then overriding the wndProc yields the necessary events. So I chose "manual window position" with a bounding rectangle of (-32000,-32000,100,100) and it works well; it does not when minimized or not shown at all. :) Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [Why QA sucks] [My Articles] Nil Volentibus Arduum Please use <PRE> tags for code snippets, they preserve indentation, and improve readability.

for an exact match, you don't need MATCH...AGAINST, a simple "... WHERE field1 = 'value1' AND field2 = 'value2' ..." would do. And you don't need to SELECT the password, the user_id should be sufficient. After all, you either get zero or one rows that match. :) Luc Pattyn I only read code that is properly indented, and rendered in a non-proportional font; hint: use PRE tags in forum messages

Well, I cannot see any speed advantage. Would you please elaborate a bit? :) If the Lord God Almighty had consulted me before embarking upon the Creation, I would have recommended something simpler. -- Alfonso the Wise, 13th Century King of Castile. This is going on my arrogant assumptions. You may have a superb reason why I'm completely wrong. -- Iain Clarke [My articles]

I just tried your code snippet on a modified c:\boot.ini file and it read fine. The tab character was in pBuf. "Old age is like a bank account. You withdraw later in life what you have deposited along the way." - Unknown "Fireproof doesn't mean the fire will never come. It means when the fire comes that you will be able to withstand it." - Michael Simmons

Thanks! This was a huge help! :)