>>>
>>>Actually, this is what I used to do. But now I am converting the application to a 3-tier design with the purpose of using either VFP data or SQL Server. So now I am passing to the DA tier an expression that may need any number of tables to be opened. So unless the function in DA tier parses the expression and finds all tables that need to be opened, it is difficult to open the tables beforehand. I believe that by wrapping the macro in TRY/CATCH will eliminate run-time errors. Also, I think I need to include SET REPROCESS TO a large number of seconds.
>>
>>There are connection properties you can set to control retries, similar to SET REPROCESS for FoxPro tables. That will handle slight delays of the type you describe.
>
>Could you please explain what you mean by "connection properties"? Where do I see these properties?

Take a look at SQLSETPROP() -- WaitTime and also ConnectTimeOut.