Rather than use the status bar, I displayed a modeless form with just a
label control. During the execution of a ton of code operating on a ton of
data, I periodically wrote text to the control telling how far computation
had progressed. It all seemed to work, except that the area where the
label was was whit and no text showed up. When computation was complete
and I stopped updating the control, the last message I had sent displayed
correctly.

Is there any way to use a user form (or anything similar) to display a
rapidly changing message during execution?

Thanks.