David,

Windows does use Tooltips for disabled items, although it doesn't change the text based on the Enabled state. But I don't think it's that far off, your users at least get feedback about what's going on.

Drop the CommandGroups, IMHO it's one of the most useless things in VFP. Use individual CommandButtons instead. If you need to aggregate buttons together you can use a Container to hold them.

>Thanks. I will try this too, and ask my users which solution they like better - actually, come to think of it I think your solution makes more sense - because a user would not normally think of clicking a disabled button, but they might drag the mouse over it for help - which solution is more consistent with Windows interface standards/guidelines?
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>To implement my solution with the command group I disabled the button itself but kept the command group enabled, and coded the status message in the click of the command group, and made the command group height and width slightly larger than the command button, with no border.