Inline...

>> Being new at this, I am not familiar with what you are saying. Does SEM have the abilty to take a n existing database and "write the code out" to recreate it?

Yes, the Server Enterprise Manager (SEM) has the ability to reverse-engineer a script from the objects in a database.

>> I assume that means it has to be "run" then from SEM on the destination machine? Since few of my sites will actually have a DBA (or IS person of any kind for that matter) on board - I need to "automate" everything I can as much as possible - preferably through my VFP App.

No, the SEM doesn't have any facility to run scripts. You would use the Query Analyzer for that. Understand that the scripts will contain the DDL (CREATE TABLE, CREATE PROCEDURE, that kind of stuff) to create the different database objects. You could easily send the individual commands in the script to SQL Server using VFP and SQL Pass-Through.

>>Also - how can I ensure that char set and sort order etc are "the way I want them" short of installing SQL Server myself? What is your recommendation?

The system stored procedure sp_helpsort will return information describing the character set and sort order installed on the server. I'm not sure what else I could say without having specifics.

HTH
-Mike