thanks darrell for the pointer. this looks its going to work well. thanks everyone else for all the suggestions but i would much rather use the same program to search for all the files on my computer - Word docs or PRGs. this Google Desktop search is incredibly fast and easy to use. and end users all like it as well. reading the Google site now they have created APIs and hooks so that the technology can be used within programs as well. hmmm, as they start competing with MS on more and more fronts, i wonder when we can expect VG.Net to hit shelves.