I agree with you WVTR, that those functions make ini type file I/O very easy to use and it would be nice to have them in Java (assuming they do not already exist); but if we keep talking about functions that are only available on one or two (and probably just one) platform (meaning MS Windows--not Win3.1,3.11,for Networks,95,98,2000Standard, 2000Professional, etc), then we are not talking about platform independence.