>>
>>This is fine for Sovereign Apps like MS Office products, but what for a parasite program or a background running utility program with a minimal interface? This bug is unacceptable.
>
>Why is Office any different than a Fox application? In office, you open documents for editing. In a Fox application you open data entry windows.

A VFP Data entry app is no different than an Office app. I use screen for these types of apps. This is why I said its OK for Sovereign and MDI apps. But I have lots of little standalone programs that serve much smaller purposes:
- a sign-in program that sits on the desktop and acts as a timeclock.
- A sentry program that polls for patch files and performs data updates on the web server.

For these types, it is just annoying to have to bundle the exe with a config.fpw.

>>I feel that the fact that we have to specify SCREEN=OFF in an external program is a weakness of VFP 5.0 as well. This should be a compile time option. It is ridiculous that I have to ship a second file along with my executable, and that file is forever ties to my program.

>What's the big deal? You already ship other files with your application. DBF, DBC, CDX, not to mention any ActiveX controls and the Fox runtime files.

Data files live on the server, not on each client. ActiveX controls are system wide and do not have to live in the same directory as the app. And I do not need a separate copy of an ocx for each application that runs on a machine.

>hmmm...I seem to remeber the first version of FoxBase having the ability to create applications. Even dBase II did this.

I didn't mean to imply that it _couldn't_ only that the products main focus has shifted.