Oracle claims the create pfile from spfile command results in an ascii file, which technically is correct, but it's got special ascii characters so notepad or the like isn't suitable to edit it. I'll probably use a hex editor, but I wondered how exact I have to be on using these special characters around the static parameter I need to add. Has anybody had to edit one of these? I was also annoyed that metalink said you could add a static parameter to the spfile if you limited the scope to spfile. I still got the 2095. Shalom -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l