Ernesto
PS: You can run the following code in the two different OS, and you will
see that it does not work under win98.

Public Type SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES
        nLength As Long
        lpSecurityDescriptor As Long
        bInheritHandle As Long
End Type

Public Declare Function CreateFile Lib "kernel32" Alias "CreateFileA"
(ByVal lpFileName As String, ByVal dwDesiredAccess As Long, ByVal
dwShareMode As Long, lpSecurityAttributes As SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES, ByVal
dwCreationDisposition As Long, ByVal dwFlagsAndAttributes As Long, ByVal
hTemplateFile As Long) As Long
Public Declare Function GetLastError Lib "kernel32" () As Long

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Dim sSecAtb As SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES
Dim lngFilHdl As Long
Dim lngErrNo As Long
Dim strFilPath As String
Dim lMaxPathLength As Integer

strFilPath = "c:\text.txt"
lMaxPathLength = 254

Do While Len(strFilPath) < lMaxPathLength - 1
    strFilPath = strFilPath & " "
Loop

strFilPath = Mid$(strFilPath, 1, lMaxPathLength - 1)
strFilPath = strFilPath & Chr$(0)

lngFilHdl = CreateFile(strFilPath, GENERIC_READ, 0, sSecAtb,
CREATE_ALWAYS, FILE_FLAG_RANDOM_ACCESS, 0)

lngErrNo = GetLastError()

Debug.Print
Debug.Print "------"; Now; "------"
Debug.Print "lngFilHdl = "; lngFilHdl
Debug.Print "lngErrNo = "; lngErrNo

End Sub

    - first, if you use SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES structure, you should fill
the size of this strucutre before use it

    - second, you must fill dwDesiredAccess with appropriate values.
On Win9x, you always must combine FILE_SHARE_READ Or FILE_SHARE_WRITE
flags(I don't know why exactly but it's the only way I found, and that
will work on NT too)

    - third, it's not necessary to fill the buffer (lpFileName) and Vb
strings are null terminated

    - fourth, you have to check the return value from CreateFile
function (you can't use GetLastError in VB) and don't forget, if the
handle is valid, to close it

So, do someting like that:

Dim sSecAtb As SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES
Dim strFilPath As String
Dim lngFilHdl As Long

sSecAtb.nLength = LenB(sSecAtb)
strFilPath = "c:\text.txt"

lngFilHdl = CreateFile(strFilPath, GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ Or
FILE_SHARE_WRITE, _
                       sSecAtb, OPEN_ALWAYS, FILE_FLAG_RANDOM_ACCESS,
0)

' check the error
If lngFilHdl = INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE Then Exit Function

' do some stuff
.....

Call CloseHandle(lngFilHdl)

--
a+
---
Parci