Hi John, I am in no way a Hex expert, but the similarity of 0xB0 and 0xFFFFB0FF make me wonder if .NET is just specifying a longer format of the same value. dotNET also has several conversion classes that may help in the process, like converting from Hex to Decimal or bit conversions. Probably of no help, but I hope it sparks some ideas, Scott Page

Note: UNICODE uses same extended character codes as windows extended codes. The problem only happens in VB code. I think the problem only occurs on WinXP, if more than one language is installed. On Win2000; if you select Chinese (Taiwan): ALT+0176 translated to 162 = '¢'. ALT+0177 translated to 161 = 'í'. ALT+0178 translated to 50 = '2'.