>...and the following works in a program

IF WEXIST("Visual FoxPro Debugger")
>  IF WEXIST("Debug Output")
>    RELEASE WINDOW DEBUG OUTPUT
>    ACTIVATE WINDOW "DEBUG OUTPUT"
>  ENDIF
>  ZOOM WINDOW "Visual FoxPro Debugger" MIN
>ENDIF

>and minimizes the debugger.

That does the trick. Thanks, George.

It's interesting that _WClear didn't work when some of the other API commands do. For example, the following works to select the contents of the debug output window

lnwhandle = _WFindTitl('Debug Output')
= _EdSelect( lnwhandle, 0, 9999)

but attempting to clear it with either

= _EdDelete( lnwhandle)

or

= _EdCut( lnwhandle)

doesn't throw an error but doesn't clear it either.

Evidently the contents of the debug output window are protected in some way from these functions. It sure would be interesting to know what VFP does when you "clear output window" from the debugger's menu. [ This is not a request for follow-up, just a comment < g >. ]