thanks david but what they want is for the email manager to launch so they can check their email.
it seems that going out to the desktop to double click the icon is not sufficient, they need a button to click in my app.

your mailto thing worked great, but i'm afraid it's not what the higher ups want.

thanks,
gray



>Gary,
>
>You don't have to worry about what the client is. If you use ShellExecute you can simply:
>
>ShellExecute( hDCScreen, "open", "mailto:DavidFrankenbach@worldnet.att.net", "", "c:\", 1 )
>
>If you use just "mailto:" they will have to fill in the address themselves.
>
>>I'd like to pull the default mail client name and path to the executable from the registry ( or wherever i can get it ).
>>
>>So far i've found
>>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Clients\Mail = "Outlook Express"
>>
>>and
>>HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Clients\Mail\Outlook Express\Shell\Open\Command = "C:\PROGRAM FILES\OUTLOOK EXPRESS\MSIMN.EXE" /mail
>>
>>It runs the outlook client ok but want to make sure i'm looking at the correct thing.