>A question for Michel - I don't know if anyone suggested this, but regardless of which back-end database, have you considered taking the specific query you initially described, and converting it to a stored procedure? I'm assuming you're using the VFP provider that comes with VFP9, which has better stored procedure support than VFP8.
No, I didn't think about that. If someone could provide an example, I would be happy to test it.
