I tend to do this using shellexecute() but maybe someone else has a better idea? We have some functions that can be run while other processes are ocurring so those are written into separate .exes which are then run as background processes. You really have to be careful though to make sure you separate the processes so both .exes don't try to use the same files (unless that is ok) etc... I recently got an example from Claude Fuchs on using createprocess() to do this which seems to be cleaner and faster than shellexecute() since my understanding is that shellexecute() actuallly calls createprocess().