>...so I'm using the RUN /N7 command to try to do this. I *thought* the N7 switch would keep the dos window from appearing but it still flashes. Anyway surely there is a better approach to do this than what I've come up with thus far.... any suggestions anyone?

I'm using Ed Rauh's appRun API (downloaded from UT). Very simple to use and wraps all the API calls. There's the hidden option in there, that actually works.

I mostly use it for zipping, and there's a neat old trick that I had to remember (ie. google it out, with lots of effort), to capture the stderr output. Note the 2> part in the end of the command line:

*-- TEXT BLOCK BEGIN
TEXT textmerge noshow to lcBat
"<<lcPkZip>>" -add=update "<<lcZipName>>"  "<<tcBkp>>" >zip.log 2>"err.log"
ENDTEXT
*-- TEXT BLOCK END
			lcBatFile=Fullpath(Forceext(Sys(2015),"bat"))
			lcThere=Fullpath(".")
			Strtofile(lcBat, lcBatFile)
			Local oprocess As api_apprun Of Process.vcx
			oprocess=Newobject('api_apprun','process', '', lcBatFile, lcThere, 'HID')
			oprocess.LaunchAppAndWait()
			Release oprocess