I started from scratch with the buttons form and tried it and now it is working. I must have had something wrong in the code that I didn't see.

My one problem with the run /n is how can I pass variables to the called apps? I need to pass the login name to all of the apps.

>Julie, the RUN /N command works for sure in all versions of VFP that I know of. If you need to click twice, once on the button and once on the form, then there is a coding issue either in the button click event or in the form methods somewhere. IOW its not ShellExecute() or the RUN command which is causing a problem but the code which calls these commands/functions.

>To test this just load VFP dev environment and try RUN /N your_app.exe from the command window. You will see that this works - barring any path issues that your app may need to handle. Therefore, check your button click code and other form code which may be interfering with this action.