Hi Tim

>The Problem only happens when I run the exe as a service if I just click the exe and run it normally its fine.

Usually this indicates a problem with permissions. The user account that runs the service needs access to the COM server and all the files being access by the COM server. For out-of-process server you can use DCOMCNFG to configure permissions. For in-process controls like the RTF editbox, there's probably one of the dependcies failing. To find out what exactly you cannot access, use FILEMON and REGMON from http://www.sysinternals.com.

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Christof