Painting is a weird property!
On my computers (Win XP and Win Vista), setting a form's Painting property
to False stops redrawing that window, but the window behind (e.g. Database
window) gradually replaces the pixels, and you can click through the form's
window. When you do, the form loses focus, though it is still painted in
front of the other one. At the point it loses focus, Access resets its
Painting to True.
I'm not seeing the labels paint darker though.
Does this happen even if your font is MS Sans Serif?

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Allen Browne - Microsoft MVP. Perth, Western Australia
Tips for Access users - http://allenbrowne.com/tips.html
Reply to group, rather than allenbrowne at mvps dot org.
> Hi all,
>
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
> Many thanks,
> RealJC