Have you stepped through with the debugger? Which line in there is failing? If you just look at m_sPort after it's done, you can't tell which call fails. Once you figure that part out, you need to fix your string handling. You don't pass a BSTR* to get_value(), you pass the address of a BSTR so that get_value() can store the return value in it: BSTR bsValuePort = NULL; hr = pElem->get_value ( &bsValuePort ); // ... use bsValuePort ... // Don't forget to free the string: SysFreeString ( bsValuePort ); Then, casting a BSTR to a LPCTSTR will do you no good in an ANSI build. Nor will casting a char array to an int. Assuming m_sPort is a CString, You can just write: m_sPort = (LPCWSTR) bsValuePort; and let the CString constructor do the conversion. --Mike-- Personal stuff:: Ericahist | Homepage Shareware stuff:: 1ClickPicGrabber | RightClick-Encrypt CP stuff:: CP SearchBar v2.0.2 | C++ Forum FAQ You cannot stop me with paramecium alone!

Yes but if I did that my url would need to be hardcoded. I have a product that I will be marketing and as a result mey be host on a variety of web sites. I guess I could create a hidden field and set the value to some string like: {2F94BC6A-9E91-4010-B991-EA0E22F9FED4} and test for it. But I was hoping there would be a cleaner solution.

Try this: typedef BOOL (__stdcall *PFUNCSETLAYEREDWINDOWATTR)(HWND, COLORREF, BYTE, DWORD); PFUNCSETLAYEREDWINDOWATTR m_pfSetLayeredWindowAttributes; HMODULE hUser32 = GetModuleHandle(_T("User32.dll")); if (hUser32) { m_pfSetLayeredWindowAttributes = (PFUNCSETLAYEREDWINDOWATTR)::GetProcAddress(hUser32, "SetLayeredWindowAttributes"); if (m_pfSetLayeredWindowAttributes) { ::SetWindowLong(m_hWnd, GWL_EXSTYLE, GetWindowLong(GWL_EXSTYLE)^WS_EX_LAYERED); // After the SetWindowLong call, the layered window will not become visible // until the SetLayeredWindowAttributes function has been called for this window m_pfSetLayeredWindowAttributes(m_hWnd, 0, (BYTE)255, LWA_ALPHA); } } and then somewhere // Sets the transparency of the window void MakeTransparent(int nAlpha) { if (m_pfSetLayeredWindowAttributes) m_pfSetLayeredWindowAttributes(m_hWnd, 0, (BYTE)nAlpha, LWA_ALPHA); }