>>>UPDATE: That seems to have done the trick. I wish I knew why, but that's for another day.
>>Becasue closing your form does fire the clicking ON SHUTDOWN only VFP's X, clear events, or quit will fire that code.
>
>So when I X-out of the application form (EXE mode) the SHUTDOWN does not execute? Learn something every day.
>
>Thanks

Correct, because that form exit does not try to quit VFP. The X on the VFP window does try to quit as does the QUIT and CLEAR EVENTS command with no code after it.