I used the client side cursor. Initially I wanted to do the application in fox but no one knew what fox was and it didn't make sense trying to explain . Anyway the purpose of using the 4000 records was the fact that it was part of the specifications for the application as this data had to be displayed in a grid format with all the records "visible" through scrolling. I had suggested that it would have made more sense to "select" only the data that was required. Being that as it may the exercise was one in futility, I tried to use code but gave up on that root then I tried the VB DED and that was even slower so I had to go back to using the DAO.