On top of myy head (see inline comments)

>Hi
>
>Following on from a thread posted recently about how to impport Russian date into a FoxPro table I have arrived at the following conclusion. I would like anyone with more knowledge and experience of this sort of problem to comment and agree or disagree please
>
>The native language setting of the Windows XP machine I am using is English. I have gone into regional setting in the control panel and selected advanced and then where it says 'Select a language to match the language version of the non-unicode programs you want to use' I have selected the Russian language


Yes, this must be done, if you want to see any Russian (or other language that not use Latyn alfabet)

>>If I do the above it seems that any table that I create or append into will automatically be able to store Russian as well as English characters and will print to any suitable printer in either language - in other words I have created a dual language machine and VFP thus is dual language

You are right, with one note, you must be sure you import Russian strings in Table with CP-1251, or import these strings in binary fields (Memo or Char).

>
>Are there any downside aspects to this such as speed reduction - my main table is about 500,000 records?

No downside, just set all Colations to MACHINE.

>
>Any comments would be welcome
>
>Thanks
>
>Colin
>Colin