Hi Robin,
I just finished a contract for a manufactoring firm that used novell token ring. I ran into considerable problems with novell. Not only did the apps start slow but the rings would some times lock a file or it would report that a table was not available. On the Novell web site there are several that deal with problems between FoxPro and Novell. Some of our problem were solve changing settings on the server. I'm not a network guy so I can't tell you which settings were changes.
The bottom line though is that the company I was under contract to is in the process of switching to fast eithernet NT.
I hope this may help you some
Bill