I did both of these, but since this is an app that I am distributing to
clients form whom I do not provide any infrastructure support, I cannot
guarantee that the default file will be or stay in the default location, nor
even that their default location will be the same (assuming it will be on a
mapped drive).

Certainly, my help files will indicate that the image files should be placed
on the server so that they are accessible by the user regardless of which
workstation he chooses to use (assuming the drive mapping is consistent).

The table that contains the user profile has a field for the path/filename
to that user's image file, but the entry will be null by default and will
only be populated if the user browses for selects an image file (using the
comdlg32 API call).

On the open event of the user options form, I set the image control's
.Picture property to the filepath string from the current user's profile in
the table (if the pathname has been set). However, I still had to hard-code
the .Picture property when saving the form, because the Image control will
not remain on the form without a valid image path.

I was hoping that there would be a way embed the default image in the
database so that I could have the Image control load that one if the user
does not have one. However, it appears that the .Picture property can only be
a reference to an external image file, not to an image file embedded in the
database. I did make a workaround for those cases when neither the user's
image file or the default  cannot be found (but I just don't like
workarounds, and I may not be foreseeing the time when someone manages to do
something that actually removes the control from the form because there is no
valid image file found):

-Trap & ignore the 2220 error that occurs in this case
-If the user has no image file in his profile, and if the default image file
is not found at the hard-coded location, do the following two things:

-Set the image control's .Visible property to False
-Overlay a text box (containing a note about how to link to an image file)
over the image control, and set its .Visible property to True
If a valid image file is found, vice versa both of the above.

If I am just making this too difficult, please let me know of an easier way.
I'm trying to prevent the "Just get MS Photo Editor off your Office 2000
disk" fix that I might have to try to sell to the client if I go with OLE, as
well as the file bloat that occurs from embedding pictures.