John, I have never written anything in this forum before and usually don't have time to bother with it. But maybe my user is old enough to give me some credability to pass an opinion (but I probably don't have any because I like writing VB). Anyhow, this thread has given me more laughs then the cartoons when I was a kid. There must be something about being an "outlaw programmer" that makes you sensitive but your rant was a cracker. Thanks.

kjmcsd, What you say is true. In the particular case described, web access was always available so it wasn't an issue. I used a dataset for the Windows Forms program which obtained the data on startup. After that all data access to/from the web service was done asynchronously in the background and the system works with nearly the performance of a local desktop database. If the system had required an off-line mode I would have worked it slightly differently for the Windows Forms program and used a locally cached version of the database (SQL Server Express in my case), similar to the way Mobile apps work when disconnected. Synchronisation of the data with the main program would have been done when connectivity was available again. Of course, this introduces its own set of issues. Rob

Hi, I did a contact management system about 12 months ago and did exactly what you describe. The users access the system via the web and the administrators access the system via a Windows Forms program which uses a web service. The Windows Forms program was written precisely for the reasons you allude to. It made administration a piece of cake and the time savings for the administrators were significant. They previously did it via the website but complained about the work and time involved. Note that the system also included a simple document management system as well with files being able to be managed (uploaded/downloaded) via the Forms program. I would suggest that the only problems are that it has the normal Windows Forms program issues attached (i.e. deployment and updating) and taking this approach involves two different (although related) systems to support. As somebody else who responded to your query pointed out, a lot of the work for the Windows Forms program is already done by the time you finish the website. Hope this helps. Rob