yeah, that's what i'm planning to do, is try to get what's there and try to put the pieces together and move on from there. eBay here i come. Thanks again Peter

There are other IDEs available as mentioned, such as the usable and free SharpDevelop. You can also write all your .NET Framework code (C#, VB.NET, Cobol.NET, C++.NET etc.) in any text editor (e.g. Notepad) and then use the right compiler from the .NET Framework SDK. So you could create a C# class file (.cs) in notepad and then use csc.exe to compile it into an executable or dll. So you get the .NET Framework redistributable (pretty much a "runtime") and then you can get the additional SDK (software development kit) which comes with documentation, compilers and samples. Both are free to install, use etc. You then get IDEs which target the .NET Framework and make it much easier to compile than running csc.exe at the command line. VS.NET is still the best though for developing .NET Framework applications. regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass South Africa Michael Dunn wrote: "except the sod who voted this a 1, NO SOUP FOR YOU" Crikey! ain't life grand?

any with using WMI SHOULD BE: any way without using WMI