>>>
>>>Thank you for your tip. The source files and the targer directory for the install disks are on our network. I tried the setup wizard from another machine using the same source and target directories. It worked fine. So the problem must be on the local machine. It is still a head scratcher as I reinstalled VFP 5.0, deleted the compress directory and the distrib directory but still can't produce a good setup file from that machine.
>>
>>There was a thread a while back on this...did you install SP3, by any chance?
>
>Yes I did install SP3.

I did a quick search on that thread - it appears one fix for your problem was to copy back the previous setup wizard from the 5.0a CD. There is a technical fix too...you can try this:

...the wizsetup error 825 bug has been
solved. Andrew Coates (a.coates@unsw.edu.au) discovered that the setup32.stf file
included references to OLEPRO32.DLL and OLEAUT32.DLL that were missing from the
[SYSTEM] section of setup.inf. Adding the following two lines fixed the problem;
* the following two line must be added to the [System] shown above in the setup.inf file
"Olepro32Dll"=1,OLEPRO32.DL_,,,,1997-05-19,,1033,OLDER,!READONLY,,OLEPRO32.DLL,,,!SHARED,174592,!SYSTEM,,,5.0.0.344,VITAL
"Oleaut32Dll"=1,OLEAUT32.DL_,,,,1997-05-19,,1033,OLDER,!READONLY,,OLEAUT32.DLL,,,!SHARED,174592,!SYSTEM,,,5.0.0.344,VITAL