got a bit of a problem due to privacy policies and the like and im unsure whether my employer would like me posting details about how their systems work but the file location is fine, as i say the same location worked in a copy statement and looks like this.

CD "y:\proram files\smartswitch

and the actual getfiletime statement is this

$smsw_date_time=GetFileTime("smartswitch.dfn")

the code is being run from a windows 2000 workstation and is accessing a file running on windows embedded (if that helps).

i am also using kixforms with this.