>Anyone know why sometimes use + a nonexistent file generates an error, and sometimes instead opens a file selection box? I'd like to have it consistently generate an error that could be trapped? Thanks in advance.

In my experience a USE always generates an error, and SQL commands, REPLACE and DELETE cause the open dialog to appear. The latter cannot be forced to generate an error, which is one of my few huge gripes with VFP.

I have heard that this behavior changes (to my liking) in the release version of VFP 6.0, but I am still working with the beta, so can't test.