Hi Terry,
Thanks for your reply.

>What are the differences between COMCTL32 (5) and COMCTL32 (6)?

Well, I'm not really sure. Microsoft says that it has consolidated and updated the controls into COMCTL32.DLL (6) - (now designated the "User Experience Controls Library"), but I'm not really sure what the differences are. One can probably "assume" (I hate to do that), that the new COMCTL32.DLL control supports all of the functionality that was available through the MSCOMCTL.OCX and MSCOMCT2.OCX before and possibly more.

>You have defined the issue fairly well - but are you saying there may be a method to instanciate COMCTL32 (6) by implementing a "manifest" that would allow us to designate version 6.

No. VFP8 seems to automatically generate a manifest that references the version 6 COMCTL32.DLL. When you choose to use COMCTL32.OCX (version 5), you're actually using version 5 of the OCX with version 6 of the DLL. The new DLL has themes support and knows how to render the controls. However, because you're using the old OCX file, you only have access to the functionality that is exposed by that control. I believe that the only way to get to the new functionality of the new COMCTL32.DLL (through ActiveX) is to have a new ActiveX control written that exposes the additional functionality that is built into the new DLL. However, you may find that any behaviours that are different with the new DLL (such as how it renders) and don't require using additional methods not exposed by the old control will just automatically work.

>Have you found a way to do that with APIs - or will we have to wait for the 64bit version of VFP?:-)

I have not. However, I think that Alex Grigorjev's class (Easy: Common Controls" (ID 9345)) may. I haven't worked with the class yet, so I can't say for certain. I was hoping to find something that would allow me to implement without using a set of third-party controls, but if I am correct in my assumptions, there really isn't a way to do that unless I write a set of controls (like Alex's) on my own. (I'm not really sure how to do that, but I might see if Alex can point me in the right direction.)

John