>>>I have a table a.dbf included into an EXE.
>>>Now I need to use a.DBF from HDD.
...>>
>>VFP will always open internal table first.
>>The solution is never to name internal tables with the same name as external.
>
>That's the problem. :)
>
>I think about a project hook doing an pre-compile-copy or something the like ....

Boris gave you the cleanest idea ;-)
In case there is a need to get a little dirty, create a "factory_use" function always looking outside the exe for a file(InternalName+"_extern.dbf") and if existing use that one under the alias normally assigned to internal file...