>There was an include file on the BASE form. That include file then included the STRINGS.H file (but the path was not hardcoded). The problem was that .... Whenever a developer would change the BASE form in any way, the STRINGS.H file would be used from that Developers path. Then everyone got that Developers constants because they had been precompiled in the BASE form. Including your own STRINGS.H file in your new form DID NOT override what the BASE form "saw" when it was compiled.
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>The solution: In the BASE file...Include the /COMMON/STRINGS.H and make sure the error messages (constants) are generic (project independent) Then include your own STRINGS.H file in your own form. Then your messages will pick up your constants, and the BASE forms messages will pick up the Common constants.
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>It ain't pretty.....but it works.....Thanks for all of your kind help. Tim

Base form was a .vcx, right? Anyway, all the .h files are compiled, so it was probably due to the timestamp of the object which held reference to the #include, which didn't change and thus the object didn't recompile. Once you touch it, it gets a fresh timestamp and then recompiles _on your machine_, (hopefully) forgetting the paths and other stuff from the machine it was previously compiled on.

(not quite sure about this, but believing in things like this often helped :)