Excellent! I'm not surprised that the RS-232 route worked under 98 (USB might be a bit touchier, since 98's USB support was something of an afterthought), but it's good to hear confirmation like this.

Now that you've registered her and introduced yourself, be sure to come back as questions arise. As you've noticed, the crowd around here can be very helpful with helping folks out.

The MX-850's a very good remote. The software takes a little getting used to, but it's not as bad as it may seem at first - once you get a little familiar with it, you'll find that there are really only a few tasks involved with programming and that you just repeat as needed. Grab a few files from other people (such as the remote files in my sig) and see what others have done - it may give you some good ideas for your setup. You may have already come across my MX-700 review , which is directly applicable to the MX-850; my older MX-500 review has some comments that may help from the perspective of planning and organization.