>One of the biggest drawbacks to VFP is always distributing the runtimes. If this could be done with the OS in anyway, then developers only need to have to pass on the executable to the customer. It would make VFP apps much more portable. I don't see it ever happening though.

I don't see any drawback in distributing de runtimes the way we do (i use a setup file created with InstallShield).
My setup only installs the runtimes and all the VCX or OCX needed. From that moment on, i simply replace the exe or copy the new exe.

Joaquim