>You know me! I was fearing it was intentional and to help kill VFP by preventing VFP from competing with other back-end objects like ASP and ASP.NET, that can instantiate such objects. I guess M$ wants to protect us by dumbing down our code on a par with their NET boiler plate shops in New Delhi - how - how - egalitarian of Microsoft. They're saving us from ourselves - and their stock value certainly shows they've been making good decisions, in this regard, for the past several years.

I think they discovered two things: a bug and a lack of resources to fix it. What do you do with a faulty electrical outlet that you don't have the time to fix? You tape it over.

Anything that follows from that is accidental. If it fits a larger scheme, good for the scheme.