>I found the NLS files on my computer and can find the PINYIN one. What to do with it though? Just throw it in the system32 folder on the user's machine and that's it?
>
>Also, do you think CREATE TABLE could be the problem i.e. when I issue it without explicitly specifying the code page that it defaults to PINYIN and that's the problem?

I think you need to install support for the codepage from the regional settings applet in the control panel. It's not just the putting of the nls files there, as there's an API call which needs to know about them, and I'm not sure it just scans the folder; it probably reads the registry. Also, I think the installation also makes sure the base system fonts have the characters for that codepage.

As for the error message itself, several scenarios are possible, so knowing the command which triggers the error would help debugging this.

One possible cause of the error is that the app tries to build an index tag appropriate for the locale, but the table isn't of the corresponding codepage. That would happen if you have the current alias where cpdb() returns 1251 (cyrillic) and you try to build a tag with collating sequence "Polish". Up to VFP7 you could do that and get funny order of records. After VFP8 you can't index on a sequence which is unsupported by alias's codepage.

It's also possible that the table had a proper codepage for Pinyin, but the nls file was absent (check for it on other machines where it works).

There's maybe a third possible cause, but I really can't remember what it could be.