>Nope...that would make life to simple. The app does use a top-level form for the splash screen, but there is an option the users can setup to skip it, which is what's happening here. The machine that it's happening on is a laptop with Windows2000 RC2 loaded on it, and I'm beginning to wonder if that is part of the problem. The plan is to have an app that has one screen with a few buttons on it that launch several other apps. Even if you launch mine from this 'shell' app it still starts behind that too. Of course none of the other apps that run from this shell seem to have this behavior....so that kinda blows my Win2000 theroy, and my mind. I've even tried putting a _Screen.Show() in my main.prg just for grins...same problem. ???anyone???

Okay, it's an odd problem, then, machine/OS specific.

You've probably tried this, too, but how about setting the active form in the problem module AlwaysonTop? Or (now we're starting on ugly workarounds :) if it's only the main vfp open, add another form Left = -10000 with a control to getfocus, and launch this with Alwaysontop .T. Or even an object on the main screen, maybe

Anyway, sounds like it could be a focus/activeform-related problem, maybe it would help to get a "focus" involved...