>VFP 5.0.
>I need to compress a database from VFP application. I did not find a best way, except calling ARJ.EXE by means of RUN command.
>However, Visual Foxpro opens FoxPro Run window over my application screen :(
>It's very ugly. Are there any ways to hide run window ? What free-domain sources or libraries with compression abilities can I use instead of DOS utilities ?

You can hide the Window by using an API call to launch it rather than using the RUN command. Both ShellExecute() and CreateProcess() are capable of doing this; I posted a FAQ entry in the Win32 API FAQ on doing that, and left a message in some detail in the past day or so describing the use of CreateProcess() in some detail.

You can use the LZ file compression API calls to decompress files that have been compressed with Microsoft's COMPRESS.EXE (it's part of VB, and off the top of my head, I don't know what the restrictions on redistribution are; files that have been compressed with COMPRESS can either use the DOS EXPAND command or the Setup API LZCopy family calls to extract them.) I'm not familiar with any free libraries with reliable, portable compression to integrate with VFP apps.