>>>>>If you want XP machines to access a shared config file, it'll have to be hosted on something still running SMB1. That could be an older/legacy server, a repurposed XP workstation, or some sort of Linux/Samba host. Some routers allow plugging in a USB stick to be shared via SMB so you may already have that capability in place. Otherwise something like a Raspberry Pi 3B with case and power supply can be had for less than $100.
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>>>>Thanks Naoto and Al. I suspected that the XP machines might be a problem. Thanks for confirming that. I'm afraid to say that we're probably going to have to live with the risk. I guess we could use an ini file on the server that would point to a SQL Server that would have the same data in the same structure. But that would be a lot of work on our part.
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>>>Tsk, tsk... just add a line copying the RO file from server to each local dir at start and access from there, Bill the big work part and send a szable percentage here ;-))
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>>Kind of a chicken-and-egg situation: if SMB1 is turned off, the XP boxes can't connect to the server to download the RO DBF in the first place...
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>But does VFP use SMBv1 for everything like Copy File or low-level File IO? And you could instantiate that COM fileobjectsystem or whatever it's called.

If any application, not just VFP, wants to talk to a resource that only "speaks" SMB (like a Windows file server), then it needs to use SMB to communicate with it.

One workaround in this situation would be to use some other protocol such as http(s) or ftp. If you make the file available on a web or ftp server then XP machines can download it. I think with web/http you can use an Internet Explorer control within VFP and automate a file download. But it might be easier to create a little PowerShell script to download the file and set that to be run at each user logon - you can Google [powershell download file] for some ideas.