> I have never used a thermometer ...- I need to run it against a
> process that takes about four minutes. What's the best way to accomplish this?

Is this a proces that allows You to interrupt and update the thermometer (like a loop or several steps to take) or is it something where You can't (like a single SQL-Statement that takes a longer time)?

If it is something that is CPU-Intensive You might find that, though updating the thermometer, You don't see the progress until it's actually all over. In this case You might need to do something to force the GUI to really refresh like issuing a DoEvents or add wait states