Evan,

Thank you so much for the detailed response. I like the solution you are suggesting. It could keep me from running my VFP application over and over again. A simple text file that has the entry ID could be processed much faster because the outlook automation object would already be initialized as well. I could dump to XML and load it from there but I will be needing the Outlook automation object anyway for replies and displaying other linked emails from inside the VFP application.

My only concern is setting the timer interval. Right now it's taking between 4-20 seconds for VFP to launch, initialize, and display the form. Will a timer in my running VFP app set at say 500 milliseconds adverserly affect the overall performance of the system? Checking every 1/2 second for the existance of a file seems like a bit of overhead. Guess I'll just have to test a bit to see what a good value will be.

I'm also considering breaking out the parsing logic into a COM object then passing the results back to my add-in to do an ADO record lookup to show a form in Outlook. I could make a light weight form in Outlook that would give the user 90% of the information they usually would need. Of course if they needed the full VFP application they could launch it from the Outlook form.

I think the most frustrating thing is that it seems like there should be a way to call methods inside your VFP program. Outlook, Word, and Excel for example can have visual display elements, yet you can call methods to make it perform through automation. COM in VFP is cool, but it apparantly lacks any kind of support for user interaction.

Thanks for your time. Your solution definitely has the potential to improve performance over where it is now.

Greg