I found the problem. I use the FRENCH version of VFP, so there's no VFP5ENU.DLL, but there is VFP5FRA.DLL. The online help talks about the required DLLs in these words : put the VFP500.DLL and VFPxxx.DLL in the same directory as your app, where the second file is specific to your geographic situation. My french copy of VFP5 doesn't come with the VFP5ENU. Well it should, because as soon as I downloaded a copy of VFP5ENU.DLL from the Internet, everything worked ! Many thanks again for your help.