maybe it will help if i say what I need that to do, I need that to record the score given by nScore at the end of a game and output it to a file and do the same every time. when the game is played put the next high score on the next line of the text file and compare that with the other high scores and determine which number is higher and display that in the message box located in the code after VK_PARAM for the ESCAPE key is pressed. get it?? if you don't know what I'm talking about then look at my code in the pastebin link i posted above