Unfortunately, taking out the line you suggested (use \\linux\project\patient alias patient in 0) did nothing to decrease the time.

the database from the command line is the same as the database in the program.

i hear what you're saying about accessing from the server being slower the first time. i think that might have been the problem with other programs, but i am running this program directly on the server so it shouldn't have an impact.

any other ideas? could it have something to do with a global setting in vfp? i'm just brainstorming here, but i also have the runtime files in the directory of the application (so that others can run it on their workstations). could it be slower accessing those files rather than directly within vfp8.0?

thanks.

Paul