CrookDawg

it worked!! (not that i doubted you) ill have to read up on DesignerSerializationVisibility when i get the time. thanks for your help (again)

here is the project. the problem is with the control ButtonEx. the rest are just unfinished controls that i was experimenting with as i am sorta new to programming. thanks for your helpControlEx.zip

i don't belive so. i have the property declared shadows (otherwise it doesn't accept the declaration) i have had this work on some of my other controls. ill try to see what is different about this one. thanks

anybody had this problem before?

i made a custom button control just for fun but when i start the test program, the text i entered in the designer disappears from the button. in the designer, it works. i found out that for some reason vs.net is not adding a me.button.text property under the code properties of my control. the text property is declared overrides in my control. if i manually add the control via code in the load procedure and add text to it there, it works no problem. anyone know what how to convince the designer to add my property when i change it at design time? thanks for your help -matt

i am using a ini file so that it is easier for the user to change the path if required. i have attached the project. the ini file is in the bin directory also this launcher is for my grandpa so that explains the project name Removed binaries (1 EXE, 1 DLL) from attachment Launcher.zip

ok i have a program that has three buttons, each launch a different program. on the form load i read in the paths from a .ini file and set the paths to separate process components. now, when i try to start the process, i get a "file not found" error but when i type the path directly into the editor (design time) it works. i made sure that it was the exact path i used in the .ini file. i can't figure this one out. thanks for your help -matt

has anybody had this problem before with the .ShowDialog() ?

No, these applications are all different (Media catalog, zip, applicaion bar). however, they DO have something in common. all of them throw this exception when i close or get rid of a form that was shown using .showDialog(). on other apps, this doesn't happen (even with showdialog) so im confused as to the cause of this error. once again thanks for the help (and quick responses) -matt

there is no single line of code that causes this error. on the form frmExtract, after the End Sub statement of cmdExtract_click, i get this error. when i click break, the pointer highlights the main declaration for frmMain like this: Imports C1.C1Zip Public Class frmMain 'This is where the error is (a green arrow in the where breakpoints are and green highlight) Inherits System.Windows.Forms.Form 'Form design code Dim Files() As ZipInfo.Info this happends on a number of my programs (3 so far) and i can't figure out the problem (the error is a bit vague). also, i figured out what the visual style problem. i had to declare application.enablevisualstyles() before the initialize component in EACH form for it to work. thanks for all your help -matt

thank you for your help. this sorted this problem (access denied). i know im using a lot of vb6 syntax (im still a student and i was trained in vb6). im working on changing to .net syntax. Also i get another error that i think is unrelated to the previous. When i close the extract form, i get an error: An unhandled exception of type 'System.Runtime.InteropServices.SEHException' occurred in system.windows.forms.dll Additional information: External component has thrown an exception. i have no idea what this means. thanks for all your help -matt

Yes the one by ComponentOne thanks for the quick response -matt

the errors im getting are when i try to extract a file. i can open the zip just fine but when i got to extract to ANY directory i get the error. i am running Win XP Home thanks -matt

Yes that helped, however now i get access denied error in every places except C:\ (i get a "not a valid path" error there) thanks for your help there. i can't believe i missed it. any chance you know how to solve this access denied error? (i even tried a new directory such as C:\ziptest\ but it still gives me access denied) thanks -matt

here it is thanks for your help FreeZip.zip