This has not effect, if that was your suggestion. Well it does have an effect, it does fire my .onclosing routine, but then it goes on happily opening the form.

(mind you frmb040 is the base class and this gets called from a derived class).

    Private Sub frmB040_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
        Me.Close()
        MyBase.OnLoad(e)
        Exit Sub         

adding mybase.onload(e) does not have any effect, I mean whether it's there or not, the behaviour is the same.