> If running windows, and the second character of the 'url' is a colon, > replace it with a pipe and prepend file: to the url? Yes, it *IS* really gross, but internal windows code does this; I've seen it, as part of a DCOM port (monikers, anyone?). The test is if (isalpha(name[0]) && name[1] == ':') ... actually, it might be isupper not isalpha, I can't recall. /r$