In MDI pictured above there is frmMain - the MDIForm and frmTimeTable - MDIChild which is the background you can see with two buttons.

i wish to keep frmTimeTable at the back of all the MDIChild forms. Neither zorder, nor setwindowpos can do this. Putting controls on the MDIForm background isn't possible either, so i guess i can't do what i want to do that way. i was wondering if there were any alternative solutions to create the app i want (or solutions to the MDI problem!)