>> You cannot rely your application flow on the internal opening of tables. If you want to work with particular work area, then you should issue explicitly:
>Select MyTable
>
>yes, i understand but what i cannot figure out is why this intro form automatically opens the 'Admin!Correspondence' table when i can't find an explicit open anywhere. somewhere, when VFP starts, it must be selecting work area 1 by default. when i click on page2 it accesses 'Admin!Assignments' as it should but when i go back to page one it reverts back to 'Admin!Correspondence'. i can't see where there is any code in any init or click event that is causing this to happen.

but, you open tables in Data Environment, don't you? When all tables opened it should not matter what alias is currently selected: it's your resposibility to select proper area/alias when it matters.