i am running a url validation program that fills a recordset with urls then one by one opens them and check for timeouts, server not found, and other errors. the problem is when our internet services go down the program freezes. how can i test for the internet being down and display and error message or shut down the program??

Use the Internet Control StateChanged event:

Private Sub Inet1_StateChanged(ByVal State As Integer)
End Sub

the State parameters will tell you what is going on, icError (=11) will tell you that there is an error, for more detail look on MSDN documentation

Is that working in your case?

JefB - hope it helps