hi again. thanks oracle and swyft but neither answer to my question worked. oracle you said it takes time to delete a lot of files, what kind of time are we talking about? maybe im to impatent. i was thinking dumping of my version of int exp for another version would that get rid of temp int files?. ive had problems with int exp before being quite new to all this the quote a little knowledge is a dangerous thing springs to mind! thanks.