>Run this lenghty process on a separate thread. While the thread is running, the UI will have some kinda animation and could listen to events raised from whithin the thread( operation failed,succeeded, progress etc).
>
>See http://www.devx.com/DevX/10MinuteSolution/20365 . It might help you.
>
>Vlad

Thanks for assuring me that I have some idea what I am doing and for the link.

David