>It seems the most likely cause is I have a subclass of mmDataAccess for SqlCE (Compact Edition). I have to test with standard SQL, but I am not sure why this line in the base class is not allowing the change? Your support is very appreciated.
>

That's most likely the problem. SqlCE doesn't support seeting the CommandTimeout property to anything but 0.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.sqlserverce.sqlcecommand.commandtimeout(VS.71).aspx