Thanks for the suggestion. I have tried enabling xp_cmdshell like this before and it didn't make any difference. If you try to run xp_cmdshell and it is not enabled, I believe you get an error message telling you so. I never get that error. I get results, then results, then results, then NULL and once I get NULL, I continue getting it for a long time. If I come back later, it may work again, but will eventually go back to returning NULL.