Hi all, Now this sure caused some head scratching. In the process of unicode-math testing some code which otherwise worked started breaking; here's a minimal example: \documentclass{article} \usepackage{etex} \newcount\ii \loop \advance\ii by 1\relax \expandafter\newcount\csname count@\number\ii\endcsname \ifnum\ii<145 % <- exactly! \repeat \DeclareMathVersion{xits} \begin{document} The culprit being largely the following line in \new@mathversion: \global\expandafter\newcount\csname c@\expandafter \@gobble\string#1\endcsname When the lower level of registers runs out, etex.sty's \alloc@ redefines \newcount to use the extended pool; the execution of this branch throws an error when preceded by \global. As far as I know writing \global\newcount is the same as \newcount, so I'll change this in the 2e code. -- Will