Thanks all for the help. Didn't think of those approaches, much appreciated. I have switched back to VC6 and am now having much more success using BGL, I haven't need any compiled stuff yet so it hasn't been that big an issue. What do you mean by 'properly quoted'? Tried a couple of combinations but did not seem to make any difference. I have had some problems with templates though in Visual C++ 6 and 7. I have used the AllExamples BGL code and got round some, like the iterator graph instantiation. VC6 does not seem to let me have very many properties added to my graph before exploding, have grouped properties into a class which seems to be working. When I tried VC7 I could not get past the errors I previously mentioned on this list. (See Unable to compile Boost Graph... messages.) e.g. ../boost_1_25_1\boost\type_traits\cv_traits.hpp(188) : fatal error C1001: INTERNAL COMPILER ERROR I would be very interested in any advice you have on this matter. Do you have any special patches/configuration? What am I doing wrong? I would like to get my VC7 build working if possible. Any general tips on general open source use, would be good also if you have a moment. For example are there better enviroments for a Win 2k setup? Should I use GCC instead? Where can I get a Win 2k version of cvs for source forge? The boost site is a bit light on help for us newbies! Have 6 years C++ but mainly on windows ;) The boost libraries look excellent and I appreciate everyones hard work, hope to give a little back, if I can get past these initial hurdles. Dave Marsh