Thanks...I'll upgrade my wine and see how it goes.


>Sorry I did not notice this posting until today. I loaded VFP 9 on VMware (demo) and it worked. Not to sure I like it much. Just for infomation the Linux has ODBC too. You might be able to use the Linux version. Not real sure. The VMware appears to work (odbc that is). Just a note: a new wine is out that supports more and is suppose to be better.
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Windows XP already boots faster and is superior in most ways to my Linux install, though I haven't devoted much time to streamlining it. The nice thing about Linux is you can not only remove modules, you can remove stuff from the kernel if you want...assuming you have the knowledge to do so.

It isn't so much the conventional bloat as the DRM that bothers me about Vista. It's just crazy to me to encrypt a signal between your computer and monitor, and I can't get past the idea that my computer will not be under my complete control. I don't steal software or video or music, and it rather offends me that the OS was designed to assume that I am a criminal.

An audio recording program I use on an old Mac is a perfect example. The version I was running before ran pretty well, but the new on has serious delays any time I try to move a control. Turns out they had actually improved the efficiency of most of the program, but what was slowing it down is a new copy protection scheme. If I want to use the new version, I will have to throw away a perfectly functional computer in order to get one that is fast enough to run the copy protection...which, incidentally, was cracked within a week of release. I've been tempted to get the cracked version, just to get rid of the performance bottleneck.

We went through all this copy protection crap back in the mid 80's, and software companies finally realized that the only people they were inconvienincing was their customers. Piracy continued unabated. I suspect in 5 or 10 years, the same conclusion will be reached. Till then, I guess I'll be running open source wherever possible.


>As far as bloat I think Linux is on the same path (although you can remove many of the loaded modules). I do have a friend that has removed D-BUS, HAL and anything to do with USB and claims an increase in preformance. My guess that is that it's not to much of an increase.
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>John