You just don't get it do you? At NO point did I say there was a problem or a bug with the KIX program itself. I diagnosed that on one machine, ANY SHELL command is effectively ignored by the machine when the script is run. I asked if anyone else has seen this phenomenon or not, and if so, how to go about fixing it. It's NOT the commands that are run within the SHELL that are at fault, it's the SHELL command itself at fault on this particular machine, so please don't criticize me for not stating the result of the command being run outside KIX. I already stated that all SHELL commands were effectively being ignored by the script. There is something wrong with the PC. I was asking if anyone else had seen this before. Obviously not. Thankyou anyway. etc etc. In answer to your statement about wasted time, yes, I am in a hurry. I have a large network of PCs to maintain, and quite frankly, my time would be much better spent doing more important things than trawling message boards and web sites for answers to peculiar problems, and getting bogged down reiterating the problem with people who have not bothered to understand the problem in the first instance. Time is money. A user is being inconvenienced. Yes, i'm in a hurry to fix it so the user is happy and can do his work again. Wouldn't you be in a hurry too? You know users don't you? They are the reason that anyone who works in IT has a job. I am here to help them, and taking a long time to fix a problem is not helping them.