Great

it works as you say, if i set each board to permit access to guest, but then i disallow global SMF guest access.
The reason why i want the recent topics to work like this is because my site will have as one of its major key points the quality of the topics being discussed(so i hope, hehehe). I will use a "Register to read the whole article and/or to read/post in the forum" approach.
Therefore the mod_smf_recenttopics in the frontpage is another very good way of showing to first-time visitors to my site that itīs worth registering.
The other way to tempt them i also use is to show only the intro of articles to guest, but must register to read the whole article.
Thanks for replying anyway

NiCo