Hi Gary,
>1.The form instantiates not painting, the form has the image of whatever is behind it.
Did I already ask if the form has a listbox or combobox with RowSource type 6=fields? If so, this behavior could occur when the RowSource has got an expression instead of just a list of fields, eg. "Customer.Name,Alltrim(Street)" instead of "Customer.Name,Street".
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Christof