Thank you for ALL your help and patience Ken. The problem was that Visual Studio requires the entire VFP patch set (available from owners area) as well as the Visual Studio service pack. The patch in particular that turned the tide was the VFP50a patch set. This was supposedly incorporated in Studio but -surprise - its not there.

When this patch is not applied you do not get the Error Messages that we discussed earlier.

This has been a thorn in my side for weeks in one form or another, but I am glad to see the back of it.

Again Thanks for your help.