>>Any idea on any speed difference between VFP6 and VFP9 on handling a table of 500,000 records with 50 fields - would SQL be faster or slower than VFP?
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>I haven't used (or seen) VFP 6 in many years. I have not tested it side-by-side ion the same box to be able to tell you. On a properly Rushmore-optimized table, both should be fast for a sensible query.
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>Compared to SQL-Sever? (SQL is a language: stands for "Structured Query Language", SQL Server is a commercial database product).
>It depends on the test conditions. Are we on the same box? Are we talking about different boxes accross a LAN. Or is it a WAN? Is it Internet? How many concurrent users?. What types of workload on the server? Are the tables and indexes (indices?) properly maintained and optimized?
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>In some cases VFP will be very fast. In some cases, slow. SQL Server will generally be fast but an improper query or a poorly setup table and set of indices will also slow it down. In short, your question is very broad and has no one answer.

Sorry Alex - SQL Server of course I meant

We work on a gigabit LAN with about 20 users on a very fast server - serving mainly just this app - tables are reindexed every night

I get the feeling from your reply that you would not expect to see any real difference between VFP6 and VFP9

We do use some SQL statements (select from where for example) within VFP and have a feeling where they are faster than Scan...endscan - I assume that working with SQL server will generally be as fast as VFP taking into account your comments about indexes

Thanks for all your help - really appreciate it - we have covered a lot of ground today - already converted the main app to VFP9 on a test site - ready to check speed and code isssues next week - we're downloading the evaluation version of SQL Server 2005 (will this do to give us a feel?) then we'll write some sample code to test our understanding of this