>I'm having difficulty with the JOIN clause of the SQL-SELECT command. It works well enough with simple inner joins of two or three tables but queries that contain many tables crash. I'm finding that complex views simply can't be created.
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>My boss tells me that he has experienced this same problem since the release of VFP 5 and advises me to use the WHERE clause to create my joins, like in the "old days". This works, of course, but I'd like to be able to create views with outer joins and I'm sure there is a solution.
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>Has anyone else experienced this same difficulty? Is there a bug-fix or am I just doing something wrong? In order to keep this message as readable as possible, I haven't included examples of views that don't work but I can, if necessary.

You cannot use View Designer reliably to join more than 2 tables. However, you still can create more complicated views programmatically: CREATE SQL VIEW AS ...
Another way is to look at following: why do you need to join so many tables at once? In many cases you may end up with faster interface by using purely GUI solutions to simulate joins.