At run time, I am passing a populated form to a class that will print the form (making up for the PrintForm functionality that MS took away in .NET). I want to eliminate the form's background image (buttons, etc., too) prior to printing. When done, I want to just throw the copied form away - I don't want to have to reset all the original properties.

The print form code works, but the screen flashes when I remove the background image, because it appears as though the reference in the class points to the original form instead of a copy. Changing the parameter reference to BYVAL doesn't seem to make a difference, nor does setting a class variable to the passed parameter.

So how can I copy this form to a working variable where I can manipulate the interface without changes actually appearing on the user's desktop?

What I'd do, and it's a bit of a pain, is create a new form and set the display properties (i.e. background colour, foreground colour, etc) to be that of the form that's been passed in. Add all controls that you want to print to this form. Then print this form and dispose of it.

Either that, or you could create a new class called something like 'Clonable Form' which inherits from Form but exposes the IClonable interface. Then make all your forms inherit from this rather than System.Windows.Forms.Form. Not sure how well, or if, this would work, it's just an idea that occurred to me as I was writing the reply.

Thanks for the suggestions, but I think it'd be easier to tell the end users they'll have to put up with the flash.