>Hi John, I just tried setting the progress controls' visible property to .f. and immediately back to true, and BINGO it appeared!!!, I then tried to update the value prop and received an error ( of OLE go home variety ) invalid property, I think I will go home and try again tomorrow
>
>thanks for your help

Try setting thisform.olecontrol.object.Visible = .t.

The key here is the OBJECT reference.