I have been waiting, almost eagerly, to see what could possibly be seen as the ''M$ killer' app' of Star Office ver 6 to release. I downloaded a foreign language version of Open Office the other day. I didn't fancy shelling out the huge sum for the MS office language bolt on and thought this could be a good avenue for MFL teachers to explore. The dilemma I am now wrestling with, is what Java VM do I install. A lot of you who follow this forum are, like me, still forced into using Windows, for various reasons. I tried to install OO on an XP machine. It was at this point that I was hit by the reality of Sun's court action level grievences. I couldn't run the Java VM. I searched the M$ knowledge base and found nothing. I then went to sun.com and on the main page was a big link to what could be the solution. I went back to M$ and found that a MS (free) VM 'update patch' was available. Now the MSVM is only 5mb and is the 'official' patch whereas the Sun VM is 12mb and possibly may be having to work around lots of M$, lets say 'booby traps' for want of a term. However, the Sun VM may have all the right classes with it, to make Star Office work and not have any of the anti Star Office 'booby traps' that M$ may have fitted. Add to this, there is the issue of security. Apparently both M$ and Sun had to put their heads together (!) , at some point, to get around a major hack problem that both their VM's had. I guess that many of you will have been through similar processes by now. Does anyone have any experiences on this point, to feedback to the forum? Bruce.