>I have a little utility program that consists of one form. I don't want to see the foxpro desktop (or whatever it is called).
>
>when I set _screen.visible to .f., I lose my form too.

When using SCREEN=OFF ensure that DCOM is installed properly or you will get the dread C00....05 error on application termination. There is a faq on the UT and apparently a MS Knowledgebase article on how to deal with DCOM installation.