Bruce,

>>Once, after trying a couple of things (for form's sake) the reboot worked. Not satisfied that she was now operational again, she demanded to know what was wrong. I obviously had no clue, but she needed an answer.
>
>That's one of my favorite tricks, too. I often have no clue what the problem is since I don't know what the user's been doing that led to the problem. But I often do a "SYSEDIT" (or similar) and poke around a little anyway, maybe adjust some little thing (a comment is always a great target) that isn't quite right but obviously has no impact on anything), then say: "okay, I think maybe this code was causing some trouble, let's try a reboot now!" Makes you appear more profesional :-)

When I started at the Extension at UC Davis in 1989 I made it my business to spend the first two weeks walking around and meeting the folks. The fellow who was the manager had something of a rep for being 'short' with folks and I wanted to check it out 'on the ground', so to speak. Well, I walked into one area where they had an IBM green monitor & XT. Well, those dang monitors were so well built that every so often they would generate a harmonic resonance and start to 'sing'. I walked over and slapped it disturbing the 'vibrations'.

Well, the resonance stopped and I looked like a genius. <g> There was no magic at all but it helped make the IT department more human. <g>