>>>this selection (field active, no area selected) isn't available through the
>>>control panel. everything in the system uses the windows color setup.
>>
>>Hmmm. Assuming text fields in all windows apps show this effert, and if all these computers are the same brand I would suspect it's either the card or video driver that causes this effect. I've seen things like it, though not exactly like this before.
>>
>>Only workaround I can think of is changing the backcolor of the field class? I hate to cludge for specific hardware, but it also depends if this is going to be the only place this software is likely to be used I suppose.
>
>has no affect (effect?).

Dave, we had a similar problem that was fixed by setting the display to a lower number of colors - they were preset on the video card to 16 gazillion. Definitely video card related.