jeffColin; YEP! You got it...Tue Dec 8 20:05:33 1998 I did not want my post to be Tooooooooooo long; so I left many things out;... but your example IS HOW I discovered the problem accidentaly;#1 my name: jasalso was seen as:jasegistered UserIt was this way inside my 4D file also:& the serial I typed in was:7777767ered User...in the 4D keywhen I looked at this it said in big letters to me...I am overwritting the letters INSIDE the input BOX...Yet upon the eight letter this disappeared...So I then deleted the 'UN' in UNREGISTERED; and I was allowed into the code....from there I began playing with the lenght to arrive at my first posting about this...and yes the lenght of UNREGISTERED is ONE letter tooooooolong......so simply typing OVER it does not delete it from some type of hard code check...? So long as the parameters are not met... BTW; I believe this is what the Sandman wanted us to see when we typed in his example: "FF" When we opened the 4D key; it looked like this: FFegistered User...Hummmmmmmmmmmmm... I'm always a dollar late and a day short... Jeff