>I have a form that I want to reinitialize the memory variables from a DBF everytime the form displays.

Do you mean a scatter memvar? You can put that in form.activate, or even in .refresh - though it largely may depend on what are you doing with these memvars.

>Naturally one would think this is easy since you just put it in the INIT of the form.
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>NOT SO.
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>The Form init is not the first thing to run.

Of course it isn't - and it never was. Check The Visual FoxPro Event Sequence (you can find it under "event sequence tracking" in the help).

>So I went to the first item below the form in the Properties window (a text box)and put my Init code there. I put a wait window there and it WAS first.
>
>
>Is that a reasonable way to do this????

It's not - you can change the order of instantiation by putting any object into background or foreground using Layout toolbar - and the backmost (is this a word?) object will be instantiated first. So you can't be sure your textbox is instantiated before all other objects on the form. You can only be sure it is instantiated before the form itself.

I'm usually the last one here to ask you why are you doing this and what are you trying to achieve, but... oblige me this time.