Max,

>My solution (?) is to declare the parent class controls as Friend (and not protected). It works great. I just don't like leaving the parent class code open like that. Doesn't seem very object oriented. Specifically in Kevin's mmMaintenanceForm all the controls are declared Protected. In the sample app the EmployeeForm and CustormerOrdersForm both derive from mmMaintenanceForm. I notice than in neither of these does the Tab control anchor to all four sides (which any user would ask for.) So maybe Kevin has hit this and sidestepped it. Anyone familiar with this?

This is definitely an issue with VS .NET...check out my comments on this on thread #913151. I agree that setting the visiblity to public isn't a great solution either!

Regards,