Should anyone be interested... We run a heavily modified VM HPO 4.2 system here at Boston University. Why? Well, we don't run CMS or MVS as our production but one we have written our own that is a mix between MVS/CMS/Unix. Anyway, a long time ago the command format was changed for spool file manipulation for priv'd users to be much what I understand to be happening under HPO 5. With every release of LISTSERV I go in and check/change every command that deals with the spool to conform to such a convention. Basically, this involves putting a * or a variable where a userid should be supplied for every command. If someone wants to come up with a nice way of distributing all this -- or if eric wishes me to send him a copy of all of my execs -- I am more than willing. So, Eric, I have already lifted MY finger, does this help?