>2. the network behaves strangely: print jobs 'hang', copying files to/from the server is aborted with the message 'network resource failure'. Even when all our apps are closed, the network still crashes for simple file copy actions. Re-booting the file server seems to fix this.
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This statement leads me to suspect you have a hardware problem of some kind. Foxpro has about zero tolerance for network errors so untill you are sure of your hardware you can't actually say it is a Foxpro problem.

First make sure that you are not overloading your server by also using it as a workstation. If your CPU utilization exceeds about 80% you run the risk of network packets being dropped/corrupted. Try running your server 'dedicated' i.e. with no other apps running on it, it should be able to keep up with the other 4 users (I have a P100 with 20 meg that handles 10 users with hardley any problems) Also, cold start all your machines to make sure the network interface cards (NIC's) are reset, corrupted packets tend to give NIC's mass insanity.

If you still have file copy problems then you need to check your network hardware. Unless you have some diagnostic tools available to 'sniff' the network, about the only way to trace it down is trial and error. First check all your connections, one loose connection can bring down an entire network. Next try replacing the server network card, but consider yourself lucky if that fixes the problem. Here is the time consuming part; you need a cold restart and test after each card swap to isolate the bad card (see mass insanity comment above), unless you can afford to just replace them all.

One other tidbit: If you can live with short file names, I have actually had fewer problems using a Win 3.11 machine as the file server with the Win95 clients.