I meant that you could subclass it. Which basically means implementing the WndProc for the control. The actual code would depend on whether you are using MFC or not. In MFC, it is really easy, as you could just derive a class from CEdit. Then in that class, you can control everything the edit control does, like, handling backspace, Esc etc. In WTL, it is just a little different. Search this site for the many edit controls: http://www.codeproject.com/editctrl/[^] Here, you will find many implementations. Choose the best one for your purpose. this is this.