>We would like to be able to implement instant messaging. Something that would function in both Novell 3.12 and NT. We don't want to use a looping process which is constantly checking for a file(s) in each users inbox, which probably will eat up a lot of CPU time. We would like to use something similar to what Strahl is doing with west-wind. Have a process running in the back ground. When the user is ready to send an instant message the message is deposited into that user's inbox and a message is sent to that process which tells the user they have a message or even pops up the message.

Sure, I'll play devil's advocate here... why couldn't you use a shared table, and check it using a timer? My understanding is the timer control is not a CPU hog.