>>So I was actually close - first thing I tried was setting it invisible, calling the form, setting visible on return. Didn't try this, and now that I did, it does flash briefly. If this customer hasn't upgraded the hardware it may flicker visibly - the machines they had were obsolete, and I don't expect them to have upgraded much.
>
>Hmm. Doesn't flash at all here. They must be really slow machines. Hopefully the VFP team will fix this one.

Never mind, .AlwaysOnTop works fine. Hmmmm... what if I set _screen.lockscreen=.f. first? I'll try that tomorrow, I've spent too much time at the keyboard today.