Hi,

>>Since the connection is open when the .Fill is called the dataadapter will leave the connection open and you will need to close it yourself afterwards
>
>Ok, this works. So, this means, if I have a robot that does those record selections every minute, I will have to issue the RAND(-1) everytime just before the SQL command in the same environment.

Essentially Yes - you will need to set up the environment when creating the connection. One option would be to make the query a SP and issue the RAND(-1) there. I usually open the connection in a method so I can consistently set the environment. Something like:

Private Shared Function OpenVFPConnection() As IDbConnection

        Dim VFPData = New System.Data.OleDb.OleDbConnection
        VFPData.ConnectionString = "whatever"

        Try
            VFPData.Open()
        Catch ex As Exception
            Throw New Exception("Failed to open Data Connectionn", ex)
        End Try

        'Set VFP environment bits:
        Dim oledbcmd As New OleDbCommand
        oledbcmd.Connection = VFPData
        oledbcmd.CommandText = "SET NULL OFF" + Chr(13) + Chr(10) + "SET DELETE ON" +CHR(13)+CHR(10)+"RAND(-1)"
        oledbcmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text
        oledbcmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
        Return CType(VFPData, IDbConnection)
    End Function

Then always use

.Command.Connection = OpenVFPConnection()

.etc
HTH,
Viv