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[quote user="joe.edwards@imaginuity.com"][quote user="newfweiler"] Magic GUIDs in themselves are no problem, as long as you generate a new GUID for every purpose. They are supposed to be unique, after all. You can generate one and use it as a magic CLSID, knowing that no class will ever have that GUID for a CLSID. You can use them to represent concepts or to Gödel-number everything in the universe.The hard part is convincing your manager that 9E1C85DE-AE96-4072-B1CE-F20CE5618CA1 is unique in all the world, but 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 may not be. The latter just LOOKS unique! The former doesn't look unique at all.Oh, yes, and my favorite prime number is 57. Well, it certainly LOOKS prime, doesn't it?[/quote]Maybe I'm missing the <irony /> tags, but don't you have your latters and formers reversed?[/quote]The last sentence about 57 being prime should have the irony tag. As for looking unique, 9E1C85DE-AE96-4072-B1CE-F20CE5618CA1 looks a lot like 9E1C85DE-AE96-4072-B1CF-F20CE5618CA1 and 9E1C85DE-AE96-4072-B1CE-420CE5618CA1. But 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 looks like no other GUID.People who do not know mathematics or programming use a slightly different definition for the word "unique." As with "perfect" and "equal" and "random", it has degrees. <ironyIntended>"Some animals are more equal than others."</ironyIntended> <noIronyIntended>"We the People of the United States of America, in order to form a more perfect Union...."</noIronyIntended> Each of the Bush twins is unique, but there are two of them, so neither of them is as unique as Caroline Kennedy. So the all-zero GUID is (or looks) more unique (and less random) than a GUID that looks just like all the others.