Joel,
Google "srvany." It's part of a free Microsoft tool you can use to make your VFP exe run as a service on either OS you mention. Once set up you can control the exe via the server's normal Services admin function to autostart, autorestart or whatever. You can also make it run with a specific login if there are access privileges to worry about.
"... They ne'er cared for us
yet: suffer us to famish, and their store-houses
crammed with grain; make edicts for usury, to
support usurers; repeal daily any wholesome act
established against the rich, and provide more
piercing statutes daily, to chain up and restrain
the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will; and
there's all the love they bear us."
-- Shakespeare: Coriolanus, Act 1, scene 1
