I agree that you should be able to. VFP should have installed everything you need. But even the SPs don't' fix this problem. Microsoft has an internal document that they will only give people who call in to get this problem fixed. This came straight from a MS VFP tech. None of the tools (in vfp or the REGSVR32 program) can make the license problem go away. It is only a problem for some of the microsoft ocx's, not 3rd party ones. That is not to say that you can't instantiate objects with the controls on them already, but you can not create new objects or edit existing ones with the MS activex controls on them. I'm sure this will go away when we all get 5.0a. [SMTP:foxpro@transformation.com] >will bet everyone does.). My anecdotal experience is that VFP 5.0 >(at least under NT 4.0) can NOT USE MICROSOFT ACTIVEX CONTROLS! No way. Active-x should definetly work under NT 4.0. The thing is that when you install a new OS from scratch, you erase all the registered ocx's and active-x's that have been registered before. If NT 4.0 is like Win 95, you need the service pack to update the MAPI ocx/active-x. These are on the MS web site. Similarly, any other ocx/active-x objects from 3rd party users will have to be re-registered. You can do this easily in VFP using the add control section in the olecontainer control object. HTH