I have to partially take back what I said about everything working because for some reason the scan doesn't go through all the folders. I know this because I couldn't find the sub I'm looking for so I set the strSearch constant to a sub I know is in at least one of the unprotected mdb's on the hard disk and yet the scan couldn't locate it so I think probably it's because of the presence of system folders; is there any way to prevent scanning system folders?