>>One other clue is that event tracking shows that mycombolist.text1.gotfocus is executing, and it appears to be that this event method is culpable for reverting the editbox's value back to 'x'. text1 is apparently the name of the editbox object contained by the combobox and is of course totally hidden from any kind of examination. (sigh!)
>
>How did you manage to have the combo contain a textbox in the first place? Combo is not a container class, AFAIK, and... keep it busy until Fox Police arrives...

It doesn't surprise me that the combobox is a container. It's just not a container you can put anything into. I'm not saying this is fact, but it sure looks like a combobox contains a textbox, a button and a listbox whose attributes are hidden from VFP developers (but not from developers of VFP!).

So I don't think they'll be any response from the Fox Police on this one.