>I've got a really cheezy way to do it:
>
>Use Ed Rauh's API_APPRUN to run the DOS PING without a window. Direct the result to a text file. Use FILETOSTR to parse the text file. If "Unknown host" is in the text file, then the site does not exist.
>

Thank, John. I'll give that a try. Right now, my error trapping eventually catches it, but after it takes awhile to timeout. I'm hoping to be able to quickly check for the connection, then move on if it exists, and if not, just let the user know and then move on.

We've got a VFP app installed in 40 school districts across the state (Texas) and most of the users (teachers) just don't seem to want to (or can't) navigate manually to our website to download updates. So we've designed an update utility that will fire off each time the main application is started, then checks the version on our FTP site and compares it to the user's version. If they have an old version, the new version is downloaded and extracted.

All of our users have a T1 (or at least an ISDN) connection at all times to the internet, but I'm willing to bet there are MANY times when their connection is down (for maintenance, hardware changes, etc) Most of our phone support is spent on helping them download updates, so we're very excited about rolling out this utility. However, I hope we're not trading the fire for the microwave!

I sincerely appreciate the assistance...I'll give it a try right now.

Thanks again,