thanks for your help. I installed it on my bobo home computer, VPN'ed to the office and it worked just fine.

I am going to fdisk the offending computer tomorrow!

>>My dev computer and the working computer (2) are both connected to the same SQL Database.
>>the 3rd computer using the same exe and dbc connects and opens tables but fails on an update that the other computers are succeeding in.
>>
>>computer 2 and 3 do not have VFP installed. computer 2 has sqlexpress and tools but is not connecting to the local db for this app.
>>
>>computer3 only has sql express management tools.
>>
>>why would one computer connect to the db, then fail seconds later with the handle message while the other 2 computers work?
>>
>>Will the client tools help me configure this?
>>
>
>John,
>
>I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for you. I was just suggesting to try to write some commands (updates) directly in SQL Server.
>
>Do you have read-write access to the database from the third computer?
>
>Are you using mixed autothentication mode in SQL Server?
>
>I hope someone else will jump in with more ideas.