We have systems/processes that run in various flavors of Fox from FPD 2.0 through VFP 5. One of these controls our Decodes system which is referenced by FPD 2.0 through VFP5 systems, the COBOL system and 2 Clipper applications. It is currently in FPW 2.6.

I would like (for obvious reasons) to migrate this system into VFP, but I don't want to have to start maintaining yet a 4th set of files for the FPD apps,

Yes, I know I can access FP 2.x files with VFP, but the minute I try to update the file with VFP, (poofda) it's a VFP file now. Is there any way to convince VFP NOT to convert the file on update?