Pete,

>thanks I've actually created my own Registry class based ( blatantly plagiarised ) on the sample code in 5.0,

That's where mine started, although mine doesn't look very much like the original anymore, I got real fed up with the inconsistent interface to the methods and pretty much reworked it entirely and switched to the Ex functions.

>but this doesn't help me without an example of each API call, I realise pointers and structures are a problem with VFP but this one doesn't appear to require them. As for ShellExecute() this calls Regedit and does the trick, but it pops up a message box at the end which I don't want ( perfectionists' are a pain )

Do you have MSDN or VS5/6? That CD is the best place to go get info about the API functions. The RegLoadKey() function doesn't have a good sample though. Check the MSKB articles Q175329, Q168877