I use Stonefield Database Toolkit to solve this problem. It's a great product. I wrote a database update utility in VFP that is a seperate EXE from the main application. The update utility is installed on one of my client's workstations. When I need to update their system all I need to send is the latest EXE and the SDT meta data files in a zip file. The update utility unzips the file, moves the EXE in the proper directory, and updates the client's database through the SDT files. It works like a charm (as long as I haven't included any new ActiveX controls).
HTH
George
George Simon, MCP