David:

You are right, the delete mark was set to true. I changed it to True but it turns out this is not significant. The Grid still won't open.

I have 2 free calls to MS and it looks like I will have to call them on this. MS seem to have an uncanny ability to have the defaults set so that things don't work. I had the same experience with VFP 6.0. It took hours to get one thing to work then that thing became a template for the slow journey to the next abnormal setting.

Anyway thanks for your help.

Mike Smith