With SET DELETED ON, VFP will secretly add "AND NOT Deleted()" to the WHERE clause of your query at runtime. As with every expression in the WHERE clause, VFP will search for an index that match the expression.

>I don't understand it, but it sure worked. I indexed on DELETED() and
>all of a sudden I'm getting full optimization. I *will* be asking
>somebody (pro'ly Kevin Levy) about this in Costa Mesa! :-)