Ok,  so for anyone who doesn't know out there ... simply navigate to the subdirectory in the folder where you installed hcl and bingo:-  the admin section!   Looked good, but couldn't get it to work.   I logged in but it kept telling me that I wasn't logged in.  I could find a way to "boot" (change operator status to off-line) but no way to "unboot" or whatever the term is.  So I upgraded to 2,1,7 ... and this has not gone to plan but that's another ticket

Thanks scriptjunkie.

No, Fantastico didn't email me anything that I recall. But as I posted, I figured out how to get to the admiin section in the end.  The upgrade to 2.1..7 was a mess though.  Can't imagine why you'd be interested but my thread about that's here: http://www.helpcenterlive.com/smf/v_227_failed_upgrade-t569.0.html;msg2767#msg2767

It might be a real help if you could post a simple step by step instruction for installing 2.1.7 ?  There's nothing on this site that helps so I had to just wing it.  Tried getting help here but it's a bit empty of life.  So, having tried to get answers to the HCL enigma for the whole of July I finally gave up a couple of days ago and went for an Onlinechatcenter solution instead!  Now I have a fully featured chat center up and running.  I'd still prefer to have been able to use HCL but time waits for noone and I had to get on.

Thanks for your help, glad you had a TOTALLY different experience to me, but confused as to why that should have been.  Nothing sprang to life for me!  Never mind, water under the bridge.

Good luck