>I need some way to find out when a network (esp. Win95, NetBeui) user of my VFP .exe dose not exit properly (power-outage, GP fault, etc.) so that I know the next time another user logs on to "clean-up the tables" (pack/reindex/append to new structure).
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>Anybody got any ideas? Note: you can't rely on the lock status of a record because a Win95 "server", as opposed to NT, does not automatically dissconnet a user/client with open files when that user crashes.

Jim,

Unless I'm missing something, I can see a couple of flaws with the other responses. Here's a method that works flawlessly:

When a user logs into the system, create a text file on the server with FCREATE() and leave the file open the whole time the user is in the system. Record the filename in a DBF. Of course, delete the file and remove the file name from the DBF when the user logs out.

When the next user logs in, SCAN the DBF and try to FOPEN() each file that is there. If you can FOPEN() the file, the user logged out improperly. If you cannot FOPEN() the file, the user is still in the system. If the user terminated the application improperly, erase the file and blank the field in the DBF.

This method also works to limit the number of simultaneous users.